French finance minister orders crypto providers to reveal the identity of cryptocurrency owners.

Bruno Le Maire, the Finance Minister of France, ordered all cryptocurrency providers to check and reveal cryptocurrency owners’ identity to stop the potential involvement of digital assets in terrorism financing. The finance minister pointed out an incident that happened in September last year when a terrorist unit apparently financed itself with anonymous cryptocurrency accounts. In the latest announcement, the French politician asked crypto asset service providers to ban anonymous crypto wallets. Crypto regulations remain in a grey area in most countries.

Registration is compulsory for crypto companies planning to enter France.

The Finance Ministry outlined that registration is compulsory for international companies planning to enter France’s cryptocurrency market. The companies operating under the current French regulatory framework are also required to identify and verify beneficial owners of cryptocurrency transactions. The European country plans to fight against anonymous digital transactions with the recent KYC measures. This ordinance strengthens the fight against the anonymity of transactions in crypto by including crypto service providers among the entities having the ban on keeping anonymous accounts. The French finance minister also criticized Facebook-backed stablecoin earlier.

European regulators are working on crypto regulations.

The European region has made significant progress in terms of the adoption of digital assets. The European Central Bank’s President Christine Lagarde supported the need for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and mentioned that a digital euro would be launched in the next 2-4 years. However, regulators across Europe criticized the use of privately-owned cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Diem. FATF, G7, and G20 also underlined the need to act in this way. Thus, the Government wishes to promote the development of crypto assets under the best conditions of security and attractiveness,” the French Finance Minister said.