US Treasury Denies Attempting to Ban Cryptocurrency Mixing Services

The US Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, has denied that the department is attempting to ban cryptocurrency mixing services. He spoke at CoinDesk's annual Consensus conference in Austin, addressing the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's (FinCEN's) 2023 proposal to classify mixers as a "primary money laundering concern" and require virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to report any crypto transactions that involved mixing to the agency. Nelson suggested that the industry and Treasury should work together to find ways to enhance privacy without enabling terrorist financing, and that the majority of mixers he's seeing are not actually created to enhance privacy, but are made to skirt anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) reporting requirements.