Coinbase Pleads With FinCEN To Extend the Feedback Window For Proposed Crypto Rules

Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange is seeking an extension to the feedback window given by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for the highly rebuffed newly proposed crypto wallet regulations. Per the exchange’s request which was conveyed in a letter signed by Paul Grewal, and addressed to Kenneth Blanco, the Director of FinCEN, there is a need for the agency to rescind its 15-day window to allow for public comments and industry feedback on the proposed regulations.

Coinbase highlighted the insensitivity on the part of the FinCEN who released the regulations days ago and expects feedback within a time that is masked by the upcoming Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day, as well as the surging cases of the COVID-19 leaving just a handful of days for the concerned parties to send in their feedback and comment.

The exchange noted that the issued Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is rushed and that the FinCEN has failed to do the due diligence with respect to considering the broad impact and feasibility on the industry participants that are expected to send in their comments.

An excerpt of the letter reads,

“This latest NPRM is not how effective regulation is made. We therefore ask that FinCEN reconsider its haste and provide the typical 60-day period for such significant proposed rulemaking.”

Other Issues of Concern Raised By Coinbase

The proposed crypto wallet rules dubbed the “Requirements for Certain Transactions Involving Convertible Virtual Currency or Digital Assets,” as reported earlier “would require any virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) such as exchanges and custodians to record the name and address of the owners of the wallet for any transactions above $3,000 and a full-fledged currency transaction report in cases where the transaction amount exceeds $10,000.”

The rules will have an overbearing effect on exchanges and other VASPs and as a result, Coinbase is asking the FinCEN to extend the feedback window so that an in-depth “technical analyses, extensive costs assessments, and complex balancing of privacy interests for the customers whose personal information would now be required to be turned over automatically to a government agency,” which the FinCEN is yet to do can be carried out and reported, an exercise that cannot be done successfully within the given time frame.

It is unclear how the FinCEN will respond to the request for extending the feedback window for the proposed rules, which a legal luminary has pointed out to shy away from the core issues needing regulations in the space