Financial Transparency Coalition

This week several analysts reported that the European Union is considering regulating and taxing the digital currency, Bitcoin. Specifically, the EU is looking to impose a Value Added Tax (VAT) on trades in bitcoin. Meanwhile, its plans to regulate the digital currency—whether imminent or not—are still unclear. Bitcoin presents short- and long-term risks to financial crime. Like tax havens and other jurisdictions with lax laws on beneficial ownership, Bitcoin presents criminals with an opportunity to keep their money and their transactions secret. Specifically, Bitcoin users don’t need to present an ID to receive a Bitcoin address—or key—so...

Undoubtedly, the world has made progress on financial transparency to reduce illicit financial flows in recent years, and the evidence suggests we will continue to do so, at perhaps an even faster rate, in the near future. Yet as these efforts ramp up, threats to efforts to stem illicit financial flows will emerge from technological advancements in currency, most notably Bitcoin. So far, most nations have pursued a piecemeal and largely unilateral approach to regulate digital currency, but this must change. To truly deal with the threat digital currency imposes on continued illicit financial flows, we need an international...

Move over, Cayman. Step aside, Switzerland. The world’s next offshore powerhouse won’t be in the Caribbean or the Alps. It won’t be an island surrounded by water, a peninsula in Asia, or a tiny nation barely larger than a city. It won’t be in New York, Delaware, or London. Because it won’t be anywhere. It will all be a figment of our imaginations—and of course the internet. I’m talking about internet currencies, and specifically, the largest of them all: Bitcoins. And I firmly believe they will pose the next great challenge for stemming money laundering, corruption, and illicit financial flows. Bitcion...