



The Finance Committee in the French National Assembly has been discussing and putting forth a proposal that would allow for the elimination of anonymous digital cash or other forms of anonymous tokens. In its report, the French government board expressed that these cryptocurrency coins and tokens represent a major hazard to the administration. The 148-page report outlined all the potential dangers that these anonymous forms of cryptocurrencies can bring to the market and the global society at large.





In the prologue to the report, Éric Woerth who is a committee chairman, referenced Monero, Zcash and DeepOnion as a portion of the problematic cryptos whose utilization ought to be prohibited. Although not directly mentioned by name, cryptocurrencies such as GRIN, using the new NimbleWimble protocol, can be potentially outlawed in France. He went on to state:





“It would also have been appropriate to propose a ban on the dissemination and trade in cryptocurrencies built to ensure complete anonymity by preventing any identification procedure by design. This is the case for a certain number of cryptocurrencies – Monero, PIVX, DeepOnion, and Zcash – whose purpose is to bypass any possibility of identifying the holders. To date, regulation has not gone that far.”





While Mr.Woerth even referenced some coins by name, he was pretty ambiguous in regards to the ban proposal. He didn't indicate whether he implied that a total restriction from use in France would be proposed or just simply a ban on trading.





To be honest, my guess is that this proposal would cover both aspects, usage and trading. As Bitcoin's creator Dr.Craig S. Wright (more commonly known by his monicker 'Satoshi Nakamoto') said many times throughout his involvement in the space, anonymous coins would not be allowed by governments. He repeated himself numerous times and reminded everyone that laws were already in place in regards to this and cited case law for people to review.





Monero - easy as it already breaches many laws, the same for ZCash.

LTC - why. There is just no reason for it to exist. — Dr Craig S Wright (@ProfFaustus) March 3, 2019





He even called some out by name and tweeted at the FBI about it;

Eric Woerth was generally negative about crypto in general, saying they are a pain in the ass to regulators all over the globe. In his introductory statements, he expressed;





“We must be aware of the problems that cryptocurrencies can pose in terms of fraud, tax evasion, money laundering or fraud, or energy consumption.”





Despite Mr.Woerth's negativity, he was not against cryptocurrency itself in general, stating that more stringent regulation is needed to create a more ideal marketplace for retail consumers. In recent history, France has utilized a mostly hands-off approach and left the cryptocurrency space to innovate on its own. Now that the space has grown, some of the more unsavory elements have started to become problematic, with scams and frauds dominating the crypto headlines in the past year. This new regulation hopes to take a bite out of the fraud and criminal elements out of the blockchain space.