 Welcome to Jalassette News, the top stories in cryptocurrency and Jalassette's. Man, break them down into bite-sized pieces today. Eh, good news, bad news. Kind of a bombshell. US Treasury finally unveils their stifling, that's a good word, crypto wallet regulation. We're going to go over what some of the experts say, what it means to you, and what overall this is going to mean for the cryptocurrency and Jalassette community. Hint, hint, it's going to be a real pain in the a for exchanges. And we'll go over all that, but first, let's continue on with our 12 Days of Christmas. So it is Saturday, the 19th of December. It's about 11 a.m. El Paso, Texas time. And we'll be giving away crypto trader access later on in our second video. This is just a dance snippets, but we need to do the drawing for the unstoppable domain winner. Who won $100 of USDC? I did not actually draw this one. This actually came down to the folks over there on unstoppable domains. If you do not have an unstoppable domains already, just know it's pretty cool because you can take a very long cryptocurrency address and turn into something like this. Also, the link to sign up for unstoppable domains is in the description below. Looks just like this. And you can check it out or to make it even easier. Just go to the anti-descripto.com forward slash Christmas. Again, that link will also be in the description and everything that we have talked about and everything that we are going to give away. We're also going to be offering for discounts and freebies and all those different things just by signing up. Everything is a little bit different. I know with the Stonebook, it's at 20%. LegendanoX is at 20% off. The extra wallet, I think there's something with... Actually, it's $25 off right now and everything else is pretty much there. Just use the links right here. Just click on the actual item and away you go. So let's see who won that free $100. So it is Tony D.E. from fieldgatehomes.crypto. And this video was actually sent to us by Zaji. She is the partner or manager over there at Unstoppable Domains. And she did a very simple video screenshot just showing that she used the Coinbase wallet to send over to fieldgatehomes.crypto, a $100 worth of USDC. So my man, congratulations. Now let's jump into today's big story. So you know it was common, but here we are. And I gotta tell you, I thought that the market would drop a little bit more than it did. We actually went to $24,100 for Bitcoin as of this show being recorded. We're hanging around $23,800 somewhere around there. So maybe this will drop, maybe it won't. But I gotta tell you, this is a big problem for the exchanges. Not for me and you, for the exchanges. And I can understand why Brian Armstrong put that tweet out from Coinbase because he is probably flipping the F out right now. So what the heck is going on? Well, the U.S. part of the Treasury announced Friday at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, where FinCEN has proposed new rules aimed at closing anti-money laundering regulatory gaps for certain, and I want you to remember this word, convertible virtual currency, or CVC, convertible virtual currency. They're going to talk about this a couple of times and digital asset transaction. So what is going on? It's because U.S. authorities have found that maligned actors are increasingly using CVC to facilitate international terrorist financing, weapons proliferation, transnational money laundering, and the big one. All that stuff that we just talked about is pretty awful, right? Let's just, we agree on that. But right now, what really funds that is the U.S. dollar, let's be honest. They're not shutting that down. This is what I think is the big thing. Sanctions evasion. The United States of America does not want that power position to be taken away. And if Russia, China, Middle East, or any other countries can somehow get around that through using digital assets and cryptocurrency, well, we can't have that. So sanctions evasion, that is a big one. But so when I heard about this, really, I'm like, well, this is going to suck, but not too bad. This is what's going on. Lawyer Jake Trevinsky explained that the rule would impose new obligations on virtual asset service providers, VASPs. Well, who the heck are those? Those are exchanges. Those are Coinbase. Those are people that provide custodial services, not me and you. We are non-hosted accounts. If you hold your cryptocurrency in a Ledger Nano X or S or whatever else you have. So Jake Trevinsky states this, for deposit and withdrawals, more than 3,000 involving a non-custodial wallet, VASPs or exchanges would have to record the name and physical address of the wallet owner. VASPs would also have to report any deposit withdrawal more than 10K, which is pretty standard to FinCEN in the form of a currency transaction report. And this is everywhere. Even if you go to those kiosks or ATMs for Bitcoin, they do the same thing. If you put in more than 10,000, they're going to generate a report. So this whole thing here about the name and physical address of the wallet owner, they already have that. So all the exchanges already have that. When you sign up for any exchange to convert your fiat into cryptocurrency, there was that anti-money laundering and KYC stuff. You either put in your driver's license, your passport or something, and they have all the information. It's just, it's going to be a big pin in the A as far as like for then the report. And that's why I think Brian Armstrong was all up and arms about it. He's like, whoa, this is a lot of stuff for us to do. Also, people are like, well, I don't want to use all these dang exchanges to transfer all my cryptocurrency. I mean, I'll buy one. I'll buy an Ethereum. I'll buy a Bitcoin from you. But if I have to like swap it out or do all these heavy trades, I'm not using that. And that's where they get a lot of their money. So that's a bummer. So how would you do it? Well, maybe a decentralized exchange, maybe a uniswap, maybe a simple swap. I don't know. Maybe you could use something like that to swap things around. That might work out pretty well for you. I'm just saying this, I believe is going to push people off the exchanges. On top of that, I believe that people are going to start to take their cryptocurrency off the exchanges and hodl it into their non-custodial wallets. Why is this bad? Well, guess what? The likes places will take your cryptocurrency and they will loan it out to big institutions. Now that your cryptocurrency is on there like, well, shoot, we just lost a lot of revenue. That's why everybody's flipping out. But I digress and let me just jump into who the heck is Jake Trevinsky? So Jake is a general counsel at Compound Finance. So he has both feet in the water as far as crypto and digital assets. And this is what he talks about in this very long thread. I'm going to just break it down to the essentials. But Jake here has got a legal mind. So I trust in what he says, especially because he's in cryptocurrency. He says this, hey, it could have been worse, like really, really worse. But it's just a terrible rule in both process and substance. Here's what's going on. And number two, three, four, five, we've already talked about that. Oh, sorry, I didn't. He states, this doesn't require KYC for every transaction with a non custodial wallet. So your Nano Ledger X, that doesn't appear to be what you have to do, but you sure do have to do an exchange and no one likes that. Heck, Coinbase wasn't our favorite one anyhow. So not good for Coinbase. It isn't an outright ban on self custody. That is also good. It doesn't prohibit the act of using a permissionless network. That is also great. And he states here, it really could have been a lot worse. And I agree, they could have put really the big clamps down. Again, I think this is bad for exchanges, but what are you going to do? Now he does say this, it's going off the rule. Here's three reasons why. First, it doesn't really accomplish the goal. Even if illicit activity was a problem, this won't stop the flow of the funds to bad actors or help law enforcement to do its job. So again, this is just another example of lawmakers not knowing what the hell they're doing. They don't understand the intricacies of cryptocurrency assets and they rushed everything for whatever reason. And if it was a reason to, you know, really strike a blow in encrypted currency asset, well, they failed miserably. He says it doesn't stop vast customers, exchange customers from transacting with bad guys. They just force them to pay an extra fee to withdraw to their own wallet first and then they can send it wherever they want to. So sure, whatever. It doesn't give investors any new information. Vast already KYC their customers and keep records of transactions. Again, we talked about this. Exchanges, they already know it. So what's the point? Second, interfered on U.S. citizens financial privacy rights. So before law enforcement had to subpoena these exchanges to get information about customers, which they should challenge, but they don't. Well, that's not true. They have done before that. But this rule would force these exchanges to hand over that information automatically every time. No questions asked. Give us the information. Here you go, sir. And off they go. And see, I find this terribly disturbing for this reason that Jake brings up considering the fact that Fin said file leaks and recent hacks. Government hasn't really shown that's using our information effectively or storing it safely. And I'm not going to go over this in detail or once at all. But just so you know that there are some bad actors in Russia who have done a hack on the infrastructure of the U.S. security. So there's a lot of information that is out there that is being hacked that who knows where your personal information in so or is. So just be very careful. So yeah, this is a bummer. They're going to have more information on you, which they already have any LSB honest and everything that's being hacked. Well, it's not like the U.S. government has put a ton of resources into understanding cyber security. I mean, there's there there is a lot, but I think there needs to be a heck of a lot more especially with what they want now as far as cryptocurrency exchanges. And then of course, the last thing he says is this is the problem. I think this is the big problem. The rule is vague and ambiguous. He says how exactly can a exchange obtain the name and physical address of the owner of a non custodial law? How does someone prove that they own a private key? What about non custodial smart contracts? Who owns them? The rule does not say. And again, without a clear path to compliance, it will have to the discretion of regulars and prosecutors and also it's going to be left to the discretion of the exchanges. So what happens when an exchange is like, well, I don't know what to do. And they don't want them to shut me down. So what are they going to do? They're going to escalate how much security that they're going to have. And it's going to be a big problem for you if you keep everything on the exchanges and trade with the exchanges and do all those hassles. So here's my advice to myself. I can't give you any financial advice. But if I was talking to me, I would just say time to get all my crypto off the exchanges because I don't really trust it too much. But you have to really decide what you want to do and really think about this because if you have an exit strategy in place or if you have your cryptocurrency on like a Celsius or a BlockFi or someplace like that and you're earning interest or you want to have a loan later on, you got to play the game. And that's really what it comes down to. Now, if you're honest people and I can totally agree with you on this one. If you say, you know what? I don't want to leave it over there. I don't want them to shut me down because this is just the first rule. What happens in the second, third and fourth when they come back a little bit heavy-handed? That is a possibility. But I want to tell you about this next part. Let me scroll down real quick. Regular orders or new orders for an agency to accept public comment for at least 60 days for significant rule changes and it can be longer. And this is definitely a big rule change. Well, FinCen gave us 15 days at the end of December with one month left before a new president is sworn in. There's a name for this. It's called Midnight Rulemaking. Midnight rulemaking applies. An agency isn't giving the public a genuine opportunity to participate in the rulemaking process, but rather trying to force through a predetermined result, which we just saw right there. Mnuchin said, you know what? We're going to do it like this, gather up all the lawmakers, especially with the, I'm sorry, with FinCen and said, this is the new standard. Rubber stamp it now and it happened. He states this, courts don't take kind of this. Midnight rules are often struck down under the APA. So what do we do? Well, to start, we should take advantage of our limited public comment period. And Mike, our voice is heard loud and clear. I expect there'll be a template comment form with suggested language to make this easy. Stay tuned. This is why I have subscribed to Jake Trevinsky on Twitter. Sounds like he knows what he's doing. I definitely recommend and I will put his link in the description below. And lastly, I think this is actually good news. Jake talks about, for my part, I'll be helping at Blockchain Association evaluate grounds to challenge the rule and APA. They've hired one of the best lawyers in the country for this. If you're a crypto coming us and haven't talked about it, do it now. This is for the Blockchain Association. So look, that's it for today. I just wanted to bring this to everybody's attention because there's going to be a lot of reports coming out, especially on like an MSNBC or whatever the other place that you get your news from. And it's going to be a lot of information. It's not going to be positive. So just know that, again, I don't think this affects us too much as far as like hodlers and what we want to do and our purpose and goals. But it will definitely affect the exchanges. And I'm sure they're going to be all up in arms about this. But you have to understand they don't know what they're doing because they don't understand cryptocurrency. They don't understand how it all works. And that is actually a positive for us because there's ignorance all about. All right. So thanks for watching. I really appreciate it. We're doing another video later in the day. We'll be continuing on our 12 days of Christmas and that is it. So again, appreciate it and I'll see you later today.