US SEC, FinCEN, CFTC Jointly Warn Against Illicit Use of Crypto Assets

The chairmen of the three primary financial regulators in the United States have released a joint statement warning crypto users of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism obligations.

All for one, one for allThe statement, published Oct. 11, is a rare instance of joint action from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the statement, the regulators remind those involved in the crypto trade of their reporting obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act, specifically relating to illicit use of crypto, which has been a priority for regulators recently.

"Among those AML/CFT obligations are the requirement to establish and implement an effective anti-money laundering program and recordkeeping and reporting requirements, including suspicious activity reporting requirements."

Recent U.S. regulator actionOn Oct. 10, Heath Tarbert said at a conference that he considered Ether a security, and predicted ETH futures trading coming soon.

Also on Oct. 10, the SEC rejected Bitwise's proposed Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

An ongoing race to be the first BTC ETF permitted by U.S. regulators has yet to see a winner.

"At any time during 2019, did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?".