EU Commission Proposes Central Database Record of Bitcoin Users

The European Commission has submitted their plans to create a central database of digital currency users. The EU quotes the prevention of terrorist financing and money laundering for the reason behind it. The Commission stated that virtual currency transfers, including Bitcoin, are not monitored or observed by public authorities within the EU and thus, a regulatory framework for digital currency platforms must be established. “For that purpose, obliged entities need to collect, process and record personal data, and sometimes to share such data with public authorities (such as FIUs) or with....

A research study published by Boston's Berklee College of Music outlines how a blockchain-based royalty payment system could improve working conditions for musicians. Published by Rethink Music, an initiative under the auspices of Berklee's Institute of Creative Entrepreneurship, the report outlines the current state of payments and revenue in the US recording industry and proposes a series of recommendations to improve transparency, reduce friction and provide a greater degree of fairness to working artists. Among other recommendations, the report calls for the creation of a distributed....

Bitcoin will lose all anonymity in the European Union if governments accept proposals to make exchanges store user IDs and wallet addresses in a central database. Crypto Becomes Fiat In Sheep’s Clothing. The concept, put forward by the European Commission allegedly as an anti-terrorism measure, means transactions and wallets will be directly linked to people’s identities. The EU Commission delivered the idea despite Interpol previously highlighting that terrorists actually use cryptocurrencies very little to carry out criminal acts. “Despite third party reporting suggesting the use of....

Russian payments firm Qiwi is currently designing its own proprietary blockchain in an effort to replace its central payments processing database. Called the "Qiwi blockchain system", the company’s development effort focuses on how its core database of customer transactions could be reimagined to reduce costs. Qiwi is one of the largest payment service providers in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, with more than 16.1 million digital wallet users and 62 million transacting customers per month. Today, according to the company, all customer transactions are....

The European Union's proposal to bring digital currency exchanges and custodial wallet providers under the scope of its anti-money laundering (AML) and countering terrorist financing (CTF) laws has many interesting and important aspects. One of them is a proposed legal definition of "virtual currency", the first such to be introduced in EU law. As we've detailed previously, this has a potential to have a great impact on how laws will be applied to digital currency issues in all member states. But, the definition is far from the only impactful implication. Another controversial....