Global peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto exchange LocalBitcoins has officially confirmed the removal of trading in local fiat currencies, the firm announced in a tweet on June 4. As previously reported, the Finland-based exchange silently removed cash trading on June 1, which immediately caused some outrage in crypto community. In the official statement, LocalBitcoins noted that its liabilities are determined by the Act on Detecting and Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, which requires the exchange to follow certain sanctions. LocalBitcoins wrote: “In order to adapt to the current regulatory environment, we had to reconsider our policy on local cash trades as …

Finnish P2P bitcoin (BTC) trading platform LocalBitcoins has kept silent after users reported it had removed cash trading from its service on June 1. LocalBitcoins, which allows users to trade BTC for fiat currency privately, purportedly cut the option for in-person meetups to trade crypto for cash, angering social media commentators. “It’s time to no longer recommend LocalBitcoins, EVER,” the top response to the original Reddit report reads. Executives from the company have so far refrained from publicly commenting on the move, which follows a slow process of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) implementation. As Cointelegraph reported, …

Major peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange LocalBitcoins.com has banned users living in Iran, according to their website as of today, May 24. Screenshot of LocalBitcoin Iranian page as of press time A source had previously told Cointelegraph in an email that the impetus for restricting Iranian transactions is to comply with financial regulations in Finland, where the headquarters of LocalBitcoins.com is located. Moreover, exchanges are purportedly cutting off Iranian users due to sanctions previously imposed on other exchanges by the United States. Major crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance do not currently support users living in Iran. One of the purported advantages of …

German police, along with Europol, have shut down servers of a dark web marketplace and seized six figures in crypto from the arrested suspects, Europol announced on May 3. The Wall Street Market, reportedly the world’s second-largest dark web market, has been shut down by the German Federal Criminal Police under the authority of the German Public Prosecutor’s office. According to the report, German authorities arrested three suspects and seized over 550,000 euros ($615,000) in cash along with bitcoin (BTC) and monero (XMR) in six figure amounts (actual value unspecified) as well as several cars, computers, hard drives and other …

Finland’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) is set to assume its role as a registration authority and supervisory agency for crypto industry participants as new legislation comes into force this week. The news was revealed in an announcement published by FIN-FSA on April 27. With Finland’s Act on Virtual Currency Service Providers set to come into effect on May 1, the watchdog clarifies that it will henceforth be statutorily required to register all crypto exchanges, custodian crypto wallet providers and cryptocurrency issuers operating in the country. As FIN-FSA notes, the new Finnish legislation has been drafted on the basis of the …

International peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto exchange LocalBitcoins will soon become supervised by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Finland, as the firm announced on its blog on March 25. Helsinki-based LocalBitcoins wrote that the Finnish Parliament approved new legislation that will provide a legal status for cryptocurrency assets on March 13, 2019. The authority has passed a proposal for a new Act on Virtual Currency Service Providers that is expected to come into force in November 2019. The parliament also voted for an amendment to the Act on Detecting and Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing that will bring all crypto-related services …

Denmark’s tax agency (Skattestyrelsen) has confirmed it is “identifying” 2,700 individuals it says owe taxes on Bitcoin (BTC) gains, according to a Dec. 12 press release. According to Skattestyrelsen, the Danish citizens bought and sold Bitcoin via an unnamed Finnish cryptocurrency exchange between 2015 and 2017, but did not declare any profits or losses on tax documents. Now, the agency will go after each individual with an eye to determining their payment obligations. “Right now we are identifying the individual citizens and keeping the new information up to those we already have,” tax director Karin Bergen commented, continuing: “If something …

The Bank of Finland released a paper on June 21 titled “The Great Illusion of Cryptocurrencies,” explaining why they think the concept of a digital currency is a “fallacy.” The paper, written by Aleksi Grym, Adviser on Digitalization and Head of the Digital Central Bank process in the Financial Stability and Statistics Department. It aims to explain how cryptocurrencies’ fundamental nature “shows how poorly understood the concept of money itself still is today” and how the Internet and social media have “muddled our sense of fact and fiction.” In Grym’s words, cryptocurrencies are not real currencies but instead “accounting systems …

Finnish company Denarium, owner of the country’s largest exchange Bittiraha.fi and ATM network Bittimaatti, has announced an international rollout of “next generation” physical bitcoins. After achieving success in the relatively Bitcoin-friendly Finnish jurisdiction, the move is the first attempt by Denarium to access a more international client base. The announcement was onfirmed on CEO Henry Brade's Twitter earlier this afternoon. Our new product, Denarium Bitcoin, is now public. It's the next generation Physical Bitcoin! https://t.co/Hct9kS5hOy #bitcoin — Henry Brade (@Technom4ge) April 10, 2015 Brade explained in a press release issued today that the Denarium product would differentiate itself from previous …

Not only are Bitcoin ATMs going live at an ever-increasing rate, but state backlash is picking up, too: The Portuguese government issued the EU-standard warnings about cryptocurrencies right as country’s first Bitcoin ATM, which we reported on last week, went live. It’s good to know so many people are monitoring developments in this space. As for this week, we have reports of new Bitcoin ATMs opening in British Columbia, Canada; the US states of Washington and Nevada; Finland, and the Netherlands. Two Bitcoin ATMs for British Columbia Straight.com reported last Thursday that Cavirtex had installed a BitAccess machine at the …

In February, Finnish silver investor and Bitcoin millionaire Risto Pietilä, purchased Malla Manor, a 600-year-old castle located in North Estonia with the ambition of turning it into an international Bitcoin supercenter. 6 months after, the Bitcoin entrepreneur talks of the reasons that lead him to such an unusual project. Pietilä is the founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Silvervault OÜ (or Silverbank), an Estonia-based silver investment firm founded in 2010. Pietilä has been investing in Bitcoin for few years and has been an active member of BitcoinTalk, interacting under the nickname rpietila. Last year, Risto Pietilä announced on …