• Amendments have been made to Taiwan’s Money Laundering Control Act and  Terrorism Financing Prevention Act
• The new law demands that cryptocurrency platforms require real names to register
• Also banned are anonymous transactions, such as with Monero

Taiwan seems to be doubling down on its the Money Laundering Control Act and the Terrorism Financing Prevention Act regarding cryptocurrency. According to a new update to its laws, the territory’s Financial Supervisory Commission will have the authority to “crack down on anonymous virtual currency transactions.

These legislations were passed on Friday the 5th of November 2018 at The Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s highest legislative body.

The primary focus of these new legislation is to crack down on anonymous cryptocurrency transactions.

No more anonymous actors

Banks are now to reject cryptocurrency platforms that run anonymously and suspicious transactions are to be reported to the authorities.

Most of all, “The FSC can now demand that operators of virtual currency platforms, including bitcoin, implement ‘real-name systems’ that require users to register their real names, according to the new provisions.”

This is perhaps the most significant part of the amendment as a number of sites allow people to register anonymously to trade cryptocurrency and this has given some layer of secrecy to users. This, however, will be coming to an end for platforms based in Taiwan.

This is presented mostly as a move to crack down on illegal or fraudulent activities paid for with cryptocurrency and also to ensure that taxes are filed properly on cryptocurrency incomes.

Some crypto enthusiasts would disagree as a lack of regulation and some level of anonymity are considered one of the main features of cryptocurrency.

Another amendment states that non-financial institutions that violate regulations against money-laundering will be fined more than 50,000 yuan ($7,256) but less than 1 million yuan. Financial regulations that do so will be fined more than 500,000 yuan but less than 10 million yuan.

A loss for anonymity, a win for security

While the loss of privacy might not go down well with all in the blockchain and cryptocurrency community in Taiwan, there will be an increased level of security for users of these platforms.

There has been an increase in cryptocurrency-based crime and fraud this year and by having real-life information on users, these can be better tracked and prevented.

A number of exchanges already require real-life identification to carry out transactions beyond a certain amount, so the change won’t make a practical difference for some.

Between new frameworks for ICOs and potential categorization of security tokens, it has been a busy year from blockchain and cryptocurrency laws in Taiwan.