French Finance Committee Believes Anonymous Cryptocurrencies Should Be Banned

On March 7, 2019, Forbes reported that the Finance Committee of France’s National Assembly has put together a review where it advises that anonymous cryptocurrencies should be banned.

Hostility Towards Anonymous Cryptocurrencies

In a recent report on digital currencies put together by the Finance Committee of France’s National Assembly, the French National Assembly’s Finance Head, Éric Woerth stated that anonymous cryptocurrencies pose a lot of dangers and should be banned or heavily regulated.

In the report, Woerth claims that to protect against the several risks that anonymous cryptocurrencies pose it would be advisable to implement rules or even ban any activity related to cryptocurrencies capable of providing greater levels of anonymity to users.

Woerth’s Commented on the report opening:

“We must be aware of the problems that cryptocurrencies can pose in terms of fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, or energy consumption. It would also have been appropriate to propose a ban on the dissemination and trade in cryptocurrencies built to ensure complete anonymity by preventing any identification procedure by design.”

Details of a Proposed Ban

The head of the French Finance Committee expressed his concerns on the challenges for regulators and lawmakers originating from the advent of cryptocurrencies. He revealed an extensive list mentioning the issues explicitly associated with privacy-focused cryptocurrencies.

Woerth added.

“A certain number of cryptocurrencies (Monero, PIVX, DeepOnion, Zcash…) whose purpose is to bypass any possibility of identifying the holders. To date, regulation has not gone that far.”

Woerth was not able to explain to which extent he would like to have anonymous cryptocurrencies banned. His negative remarks, however, infer a total ban on this brand of digital currency or the development of a regulatory bill that can prevent them from being freely used.

We must protect our ability to transact privately online. Without cryptocurrency, a cashless society is a surveillance society

This is at the top of of Coin Center’s agenda in 2019 and beyond: https://t.co/t0BTlZZBmr

— Neeraj K. Agrawal (@NeerajKA) February 6, 2019

This may be closing in on companies in demanding them to stop accepting them or even forbidding exchanges and other trade desks from listing anonymous cryptocurrencies for trade.

Woerth wrote:

“The distinction between the different uses of cryptocurrencies must continue, to establish a finer and more precise regulation protector of the general interest, as well as the private interest of the entrepreneurs of this domain.”

He was able to clarify that he is not waging war against the whole industry, and instead explained that he understands that only some areas within the industry lack supervision and may become problematic for law enforcement agencies to track.

In separate news, the Winklevoss Twins mentioned they see regulators still haven’t presented many concerns to anonymous cryptos, especially Zcash and Monero when it comes to cryptos oriented for privacy and anonymity.