The US drops its plan to track crypto sent to private wallets

The US keeps backing away from new checks on your money, and Europe keeps adding them.

Since 2020 the US had a plan to make apps like Coinbase tell the government about every transfer over $10,000 from their customers to private wallets. Yesterday, it announced it had dropped the plan.

That makes it easier to move your crypto into your own wallet in the US than in Europe.

In the US

• Coinbase checks your ID when you open an account.
• It tells the government about any transfer that looks suspicious.
• It doesn't have to ask you to prove the wallet is yours.

In Europe

• Since December 2024, if you move more than €1,000 from an exchange to a wallet you hold yourself, like MetaMask or a Ledger, the exchange has to check the wallet is yours.
• Each exchange picks how, like asking you to sign a message from the wallet or send a tiny test payment from it.
• Even between two exchanges, like Binance to Revolut, your name and details have to travel with the crypto, whatever the amount.

And it's not just crypto.

In 2024, the US started making private companies tell the government who really owns them. In August, it scrapped that for American companies, and now only foreign companies still have to.

Meanwhile, last week the EU set out new rules for how every bank has to check who really owns a company that opens an account with it.

The pattern is clear: fewer questions in the US, and more in Europe.