FinCEN MSB Guidance and the Monero CCS
Official FinCEN Guidance - May 9, 2019
This official statement by the US Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network was released last month and consolidates previous Bank Secrecy Act guidance set by FinCEN into an interpretation that specifically applies these regulations to cryptocurrencies.
Many Monero CCS donors and recipients are US citizens. Is the Monero CCS platform hosted or administered by US citizens?
I think there is sufficient overlap between the Monero CCS and the United States that this regulation should not be ignored. What steps have the Monero CCS administrators, donors, and recipients taken to comply with US regulation?
The Monero CCS meets the explicit definition of a Money Service Business because it accepts CVC (convertible virtual currency) from at least one party and then sends CVC to another party. As a money transmitter, US FinCEN regulations require that proper identity records are collected. Specifically from page 20:
Lastly, FinCEN issued guidance stating that originating or intermediary financial institutions that replace the proper identity of a transmittor or recipient in the transmittal order with a pseudonym or reference that may not be decoded by the receiving financial institution (i.e., substituting the full name of the transmittor with a numeric code) are not complying with their obligations under the Funds Travel Rule
This quote is footnoted, linking to a 2010 Guidance which outlines the requirement for name and addresses to be collected for the recipients engaging with a money transmitter.
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