Circle’s Chief Compliance Officer Talks About Regulatory Clarities

By Swati Kishore

During a recently conducted Reddit Ask Me Anything session, the cryptocurrency firm Circle’s Chief Compliance Officer, Robert Bench asserted the importance of regulatory clarity in crypto businesses.

Goldman Sachs-backed firm Circle hosted the Reddit AMA after the success of such a session by Gemini.

Interestingly a Redditor asked the company if they have noticed a rise in requests by law enforcement agencies to monitor transactions carried out in cryptos.

The Reddit user also asked Circle if privacy coins such as Monero pose any threat to their exchange and if their transactions on Circle’s exchange could lead to sanctions or fines.

Circle’s Head Regulatory Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, Robert Bench answered the question saying that regulatory clarification is critical because the law enforcement agencies across the world are cognizant of the fact that crypto can be used for the facilitation of crimes. Bench further explained,

“As they (law enforcement agencies) get smarter every day in this space, they’ll request information from firms like Circle where they think such transactions may have occurred on the platform. There’s a great deal of valuable conversation around privacy coins, and what they mean from a regulatory & enforcement perspective. One of our jobs is to educate the use for these coins (and there is certainly legitimate use cases for privacy), and on the other side build robust tools to know our customers and what they’re doing on our platforms.”

Bench further stated that regularity clarity is very critical because privacy coins such as Monero get a lot of attention from law enforcement. He elaborated how Anti Money Laundering Laws and Privacy are both very big concerns presently.

Bench said that as of now no laws or rules exist in the United States regarding the use of privacy coins. He explained,

“There remains a great deal of education in the space with our partners in government on the use cases for these coins.”

It is interesting to note that while regulatory bodies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have been mulling the introduction of a regulatory framework for some time, there is still no clarity. Perhaps, 2019 will be the year where such regulatory frameworks take the centre stage!