The U.S. Treasury fined Bitcoin for allowing its use

The law is strict, but it is the law – The US company Bitcoin has agreed to pay a fine of about 000 100,000 for violating the law. The permit was issued by the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control.

A “reasonable” permission

OFAC announced that this permission Justified Pitco, in 183 cases, Living people Allowed areas Speak U.S. Treasury Use its digital portfolio management service with full knowledge of the facts.

Bitcoin has failed to prevent people in the Crimean region of Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria from using its digital portfolio management service. “

Advertising Of OFAC

The thing is, Bitcoin enjoyed it from March 2015 to December 2019 Failures In its verification processes. No restrictions are put in place to prevent these users from using its services (in this case, a simple hot wallet). So, these are transactions Several thousand dollars They were allowed.

L ‘, 8 98,830 fines Very clear by OFAC standards, it said Bitcoin could have been ordered to pay more than $ 50 million Invalid transactions. This mitigated permit reflects the fact that Bitcoin is still one “Relatively small company”.

Risk-based compliance

Bitcoin has implemented one Compliance Policy Following the discovery of violations in early 2020, the OFAC complied with sanctions “Invested in significant remedial action in response to overt violations “. These activities includeHiring A Compliance Officer and Enforcement a New policy OFAC, which now applies to all Bitcoin services.

“Bitcoin will pass [désormais] All accounts including this ‘Hot wallets’, Dividing the list of persons blocked by the OFAC (…) Bitcoin also conducted a retrospective examination to identify current users. “

OFAC Notice