By According to a report from media outlet RNS on 13th September 2019, the Association of Banks of Russia (ABR) wants to eliminate all anonymity in cryptocurrency operations and make crypto ownership facts and figures public. The Russian banks propose that the owners of digital currencies should disclose their holdings, or otherwise face criminal liability.
The association’s vice president, Anatoly Kozlachkov, explained that the ABR wants special software in place to identify the owners of digital assets. The software would allow ‘authorized market makers’ to identify owners of digital assets upon creditors requests.
The debtor will then be required to transfer passwords from their electronic wallets to creditors upon the court decision so that their digital asset value can be determined.
Kozlachkov stated:
“The simplest example would be a case whereby you know that someone who owes you a large amount of money has Bitcoin holdings.”
He then pointed out that, currently, there are no legal means of intervening in cases where a debtor holds huge amounts of digital assets.
How it will work
The Association of Russian Banks proposes to create a two-stage approach to the problem.
The first stage would consist of the creation of specialized software to investigate public blockchains and identify the owners of the addresses, to know how many digital tokens a person has in total.
The second stage would involve making the information usable in court. This will help judges be able to rule any debtors to hand over the private keys of their wallets or else face criminal charges.
Kozlachkov explained that such software already exists and is currently used by law enforcement. The ABR aims to make it public and usable by everyone.
Crypto Anonymity in Danger?
This proposal by the Russian Association seems somewhat unusual. However, it is said to be based on observations that it’s possible to trace the authors of anonymous transactions on most public blockchains.
This is made possible by the fact that cryptocurrency exchanges do in fact, verify the identities of their users.
If adopted, the ABR proposal could further undermine anonymity in the Russian cryptocurrency markets.
However, it is worth noting that ABR is a non-governmental organization and it does not include Russia’s largest banks, like Sberbank, Alfa-Bank or VTB.
Comments