As Joe Biden takes office as the new president of the United States, he’s put a freeze on federal agency rules which includes one that would directly affect cryptocurrency wallet users in the country.
The Biden administration will review all new rules and those that were in the process of being instituted by the Trump presidency which will push back the launch of a set of policies that would force various financial institutions keep and submit detailed customer information – including cryptocurrency companies.
United force against proposed FinCEN rule
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed these policies late last year which has been met by some resistance from the cryptocurrency space in particular. The regulator had also opened up the proposed rules for public comment and the likes of Coinbase were among those that wrote back to FinCEN.
Coinbase’s response cited a wide variety of reasons why it opposed the proposed rules calling them ‘impermissibly vague’ and voicing concerns that they impose unnecessary, expansive privacy invasions on the public’.
There were widespread calls for the comment period to be extended to allow for more public feedback, while Armstrong stressed that there could be ‘unintended side effects if FinCEN rushed to make a decision.
A number of major crypto companies joined forces with Coinbase as they voice opposition to the rules. This included Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s digital payments firm Square and various prominent exchanges and industry experts.
The regulator eventually announced that it was extending the comment period midway through January for an additional 15 days at the least. As Coindesk reported at the time, exchanges would have to store detailed records including a user’s name and address information if they transferred over $3,000 in crypto per day to private cryptocurrency wallets.
On the back burner for now
As is understood to be standard practice, a new presidency will always freeze and evaluate all ongoing rules being passed into law. All agencies were requested to consider postponing the start date of laws for 60 days following the announcement.
