The U.K. Treasury department has announced a crackdown on bitcoin and other digital currencies amid growing concerns that they are being employed by criminals for money laundering and tax evasion.
The cryptocurrency has become widely popular in a relatively short space of time. Unfortunately, while it has many benefits to its use, it has also gained a reputation of being utilised by criminals. It is because of this that the Treasury is planning to regulate them, bringing them in line with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) laws.
Labour MP John Mann, a member of the House of Commons Treasury select committee, who suggested MPs would look into the regulation of virtual currencies, said over the weekend to The Daily Telegraph that:
These new forms of exchange are expanding rapidly and we’ve got to make sure we don’t get left behind – that’s particularly important in terms of money laundering, terrorism or pure theft. It would be timely to have a proper look at what this means. It may be that we want to speed up our use of these kinds of thing in this country, but that makes it all the more important that we don’t have a regulatory lag.
News of this announcement reportedly saw the price of bitcoin drop from new highs of just under $12,000 to $10,600, on Sunday evening, reports ZeroHedge. According to the report, it appears that the Treasury is taking a leaf out of China’s book that will eventually force digital currency traders to reveal their identities and report suspicious activities…
Read Full: UK Treasury to Regulate Bitcoin Amid AML and Tax Evasion Fears
