EU politicians wtill ignorant of what crypto is and how it works

Politics is not an easy job, as it requires to have a good understanding of the phenomena one is trying to regulate. On the subject of crypto, however, most EU politicians do not do their homework.

On Tuesday, the EU Commissioner for Financial Services Mairead McGuinness announced the proposal to “ban anonymous crypto wallets” as a part of AML program, raising concerns about the extent of her ignorance: does she know that most crypto wallets are just open-source software that anyone can download and use? Is she does, will it mean that police will break into every home in the EU and check every device for such a wallet? Or she meant custodial wallets that are managed by third party companies – in which case they will be obliged to report as any other financial institution, while law-abiding citizens continue using their non-custodial wallets? It looks like the second option is much more realistic, but why Mrs McGuinness announced it so clumsily?..

This comes after a recent TV interview where Christine Lagarde, head of ECB, could not explain what a CBDC is (while the ECB officially started the 2-year digital euro exploration program), and many other public appearances where the politicians accuse crypto of being a tool for terrorists and money laundering.

FYI: ~0.34% of crypto is used for money laundering and crime, and this % is dropping because even criminals start to get that blockchain is literally transparent (data by Chainalysis).

Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars and euros are being laundered by banks every year (just google it).

Wouldn’t it be more logical to put your best efforts there, all while educating yourself on crypto mechanism ?