Financial Crimes Enforcement Network tells about the ICOs regulation

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FinCEN has responded to the inquiry of the American senator about the monitoring and regulation of initial coin offerings. Initial coin offerings became much more popular throughout the past year, but they currently lack sensible regulation in many cases, which might have been the reason of Senator Ron Wyden’s concerns.

The response of this organization explains that in some cases, initial coin offerings can be money services businesses and thus the founders of ICOs have to follow the rules on anti-money laundering and combat the finance of terrorism like everybody else. However, the law enforcement agency notes that initial coin offerings may vary and every case has to be reviewed independently.

Interesting fact: while they easily might have missed this, exchange managers and ICO leaders were subject to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA which contains the aforementioned rules) since 2011.

In conclusion, the obvious advice for the United States ICO startuppers coming out from this letter is to obey the Bank Secrecy Act just in case.

The FinCEN has previously been seen in a major case with Alexander Vinnik, an alleged fraudster and money launderer. Judging by the news background, he has not been transferred to the United States just yet.