With Yellen confirmed, Treasury moves forward with stalled crypto monitoring rule

The Treasury has opened up the comment period for its self-hosted wallet requirements for another 60 days.

The United States Treasury Department’s now-infamous proposal to require information on crypto transfers from exchanges to self-hosted wallets is back in motion.

Per a Tuesday announcement from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, stakeholders will have another 60 days to respond to the proposal. While a marked improvement from the 15-day comment period of the original proposal, unfortunately for the crypto industry, it doesn’t look like the actual terms of the proposal have changed along with the administration.

The news follows Janet Yellen’s confirmation as secretary of the Treasury last night. Shortly after his inauguration, President Joe Biden ordered a freeze on all midnight rulemaking from agencies run by appointees — the Treasury included.

FinCEN had originally announced the proposal right before Christmas with a wildly truncated comment period so that the final rule could come out before Donald Trump left office. It was rumored to be an initiative directly from Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, himself. 

The crypto community reacted with outrage, submitting enough commentary and leveraging enough political pressure to get Mnuchin’s Treasury to extend the comment period, effectively passing the proposal off to his successor. Some hoped that Yellen, who Biden named as his treasury secretary nominee back in November 2020, would be less antagonistic toward crypto. 

It remains to be seen what happens after the Treasury gets another round of comments, but the return to this rule on Yellen’s first formal day at work is not cause for optimism. Interested parties can send comments to FinCEN here.

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