Coinbase, the US-based cryptocurrency exchange, said that a 15-day notice-and-comment period for Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN’s) new crypto rules is not enough.
It has been reported that Paul Grewal, the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase, addressed in a blog post that FinCEN’s newly released rulemaking regarding self-hosted crypto wallets, as the blog post represents an open letter to Kenneth Blanco, the Director of FinCEN.
However, in the letter, Grewal considered the new rules by the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, as an “unfortunate and disappointing departure” from the company’s long-running relationship with the regulator.
Grewal elaborated that the 15-day period granted by FinCEN to the industry to respond to the new rules is not enough, especially given that it is spanning the Christmas holidays and comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
He added:
“FinCEN asked the public to provide comments in just 15 days, spanning Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day, in the middle of a global pandemic — leaving just a handful of actual working days for comments.”
Likewise, Grewal asked FinCEN to “reconsider its haste” and provide a typical 60-day period notice-and-comment for the proposed rulemaking.
When’s the last time the government moved this quickly? FinCEN is trying to rush crypto regulations but @Coinbase is pushing back hard. The exchange’s legal counsel is trying to extend the industry response time to 60 days instead of the current 15 days. https://t.co/Fa8zWVikJN — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) December 22, 2020
He further noted that 60-day comment periods to regulations represent an ordinary practice by FinCEN in terms of the traditional financial industry.
Grewal added:
“For example, FinCEN’s Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions provided the traditional 60 days for notice and comment.”
Also, he went on to say that an extended notice-and-comment period will provide the industry with a “true opportunity to engage in the review and comment process with respect to the proposed rule as the law requires.”
Thus, Grewal wrote:
“There is no emergency here […] There is also no justification for treating the cryptocurrency industry so differently from our counterparts in traditional finance. […] The same rationale applies even more so in the midst of a global pandemic.”
Source: Cointelegraph
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