EU Extends Anti-Money Laundering Rules to Crypto Asset Transfers

The European Council extended the scope of anti-money laundering rules to crypto asset transfers with the goal of "making it more difficult for criminals to circumvent" the rules, the council said May 16. The new rules oblige crypto asset service providers to collect and make available information about the sender and beneficiary of crypto asset transfers they operate, "regardless of the amount of crypto assets being transacted," ensuring the traceability of these transfers to "better identify possible suspicious transactions and block them," the council said.