FinCEN Withdraws $10,000 Crypto Wallet Reporting Rule

FinCEN has withdrawn its 2020 proposal that would have required banks and crypto exchanges to report transfers of more than $10,000 to or from private wallets, along with a 2023 proposal on crypto mixers. Neither rule ever took effect.

The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced the withdrawals in a news release published Sunday, Oct. 5. The agency said in the release that both moves were part of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda and an effort to make digital-asset rules “fit-for-purpose.”

What the withdrawn rule would have required

FinCEN first proposed the wallet reporting rule in December 2020, in the final weeks of the first Trump administration. It would have required banks and money-service businesses, a category that includes crypto exchanges, to file reports whenever customers sent more than $10,000 in crypto to or from unhosted wallets, meaning wallets controlled by users rather than a financial institution. Transfers that crossed the threshold when added together over 24 hours would have triggered a report too.

Firms would also have had to collect and retain information on the customer and on the wallet on the other side of the transfer. The proposal drew thousands of public comments and sat unresolved for nearly six years.

The mixer rule went with it

FinCEN also withdrew a separate 2023 proposal that would have classified crypto mixing transactions as a primary money-laundering concern, a designation that would have allowed the government to impose additional reporting requirements on financial institutions handling mixed funds. That proposal never took effect either.

The withdrawals remove a long-running compliance question for exchanges and banks that serve customers who self-custody. Existing reporting obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act remain in place; only these two proposals were dropped.