Coinbase has announced that the company plans to introduce a number of changes for customers in the Netherlands in order to comply with the 1977 Sanctions Act, a law that recently applied know-your-customer (KYC) guidelines to non-custodial wallets. If the person living in the Netherlands wants to send crypto to a third-party wallet via Coinbase, they must identify the wallet owner’s name, the purpose of transfer, and the full residential address of the recipient.
Coinbase says the new rules are being applied because the company must comply with local regulations. The 1977 Sanctions Act coupled with the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act (Wwft) requires virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to provide KYC data on outgoing transactions involving non-custodial and third-party wallets.
The 1977 Sanctions Act is codified by the Dutch Authority for Financial Markets (AFM) and Netherlands Central Bank (DNB). This means that Coinbase, or any Dutch VASP for that matter, must identify who the crypto transfer is going to and the purpose of the transaction.
“We are required to collect additional information for all transactions where a customer in the Netherlands sends crypto from their Coinbase exchange account to an address that is not controlled by Coinbase,” the crypto trading platform’s blog post explains.
While the new rule is only for customers in the Netherlands, there’s concern the regulatory approach could happen in other countries.
Current crowd advice: Always deposit from, and withdraw to, your own wallet. It’s a good idea for security, privacy and accounting reasons, as well as legal.
What do you think about the new Coinbase rules being applied to residents from the Netherlands? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
