Taiwan Central Bank Governor Suggests Bitcoin Transactions Should Fall Under AML Regulation

The Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) has recommended that Bitcoin (BTC) trading should be regulated under the Department of Justice’s anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, local news outlet Focus Taiwan reports today, April 2.

In October of last year, Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) had shown support for Initial Coin Offering (ICO), cryptocurrency, and Blockchain adoption and innovation within the country.

In response to concerns broached about BTC’s recently falling prices at a meeting with Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan Finance Committee, Yang Chin-long, the governor of the central bank, said that the bank’s “response measures” to the noted “opacity” of BTC transactions are to first remind investors of risks, and then to move towards BTC AML regulation.

Yang Chin-long became governor of the central bank only in February, where he immediately indicated the bank’s friendly attitude towards Blockchain technologies in his speech at the handover ceremony.

Wu Bing-rui, a legislator for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, also asked Yang Chin-long if there was a need to pay attention to Bitcoin mining in the country, citing the figure that the cost of mining in Taiwan is the third lowest in the world due to low electricity cost.

According to Yang Chin-long, most of Taiwan’s BTC mining technology manufacturers are located in mainland China, but that does not mean that the government shouldn’t pay attention to the effect of BTC mining on Taiwan’s power usage.

Debate about the potential harm caused by cryptocurrency mining’s high energy consumption has recently increased as countries like Iceland – which attracts miners due to its cold climate and access to renewable energy – and US states like Washington – who have low electricity costs – are seeing an influx of miners that are using more energy than regular households and overloading electrical infrastructure.