In their legislative amendment proposals released Monday, MEPs said NFT trading platforms should be subject to European Union anti-money laundering (AML) laws.
Green Party deputies and socialist representatives are also specializing in a proposed regulation on money laundering. cryptocurrency seems to support the inclusion of wallets and decentralized finance (DeFi) into the law as well.
Just last week, the EU bloc tentatively agreed on new laws designed to license crypto companies and enforce identity checks on transactions, known as the Crypto Asset Markets Regulation (MiCA).
However, the European Commission avoided creating a detailed anti-money laundering transaction law covering other sectors such as banking.
European Union Wants NFT Platforms Like OpenSea And DAOs To Also Be Subject to Money Laundering Laws
These anti-money laundering laws, proposed by Ernest Urtasun and Kira Marie Peter-Hansen of the Green Party and socialists Aurore Lalucq and Csaba Molnár, aim to make NFT trading platforms also “obligated entities” under EU money laundering law.
This means that organizations like OpenSea may have to assess the risk of illicit finance flowing through their systems and perform identity checks on new customers and suspicious transactions, as similar organizations such as banks, real estate agents, art dealers, and other crypto providers do.
Other amendments introduced by Urtasun, Peter-Hansen, Lalucq, and Dutch lawmaker Paul Tang also aim to use the law to enforce anti-money laundering controls over decentralized autonomous entities (DAOs) and “unhosted wallets” that are not managed by any regulated crypto provider.
*Not investment advice.