After yesterday's vote of the European Parliament committee, I have become very pessimistic:
EU Parliament Passes Privacy-Busting Crypto Rules Despite Industry Criticism."
Lawmakers are set to end even the smallest anonymous crypto transactions, and plan measures that could see unregulated exchanges cut off."
The law will affect exchanges and non-custodial wallets, such as metamask, ledger and trezor,
as I explained.But it must be said that this is only the first step of a law, which will take some time to be approved and can still be modified, but they have made a bad start:
"
The plans must also be agreed on by both the parliament and national ministers, who meet as the EU Council, in order to pass into law."
In line with my pessimism, I came across an even more pessimistic article,
Digital currency industry melts down ahead of key EU vote on non-custodial wallets, from which I will quote an excerpt:
(The article was written before the vote took place)
"
If the vote goes through, this will radically alter how digital currency transfers work in the EU. It will undoubtedly place huge burdens on unhosted wallet providers, but then again, the EU doesn’t care about that. It only cares about its objectives as a political entity, and it’s notoriously tough on financial crimes, money laundering, and tax evasion. The EU was never going to let Bitcoin and other digital currencies run free, given the way they have been portrayed for the last several years and given the widespread anti-government and anti-law sentiment within the industry.
This was always coming, and it’s going to happen everywhere
Slowly but surely, people are beginning to realize that Bitcoin can not subvert governments and allow people to do whatever they like without consequences. That narrative led to disasters like the Silk Road and extremist anarchists like Cøbra touting Bitcoin as a tool to bring in the sort of chaos they wanted to see in the world. However, Bitcoin isn’t suitable for any of that, and its success entirely depends on being legally compliant.
As we see, powerful governments can use the law to force their will on the industry. We saw in Ottawa how lawmakers could freeze wallets with millions worth of BTC in them with the stroke of a pen. We’re seeing how even the idea that the EU could require unhosted wallets to be linked to identity is causing mass panic across the industry.
What happened to the narrative that Bitcoin could withstand all of this, and governments were rendered powerless when faced with it? This was a lie all along, and big companies like Coinbase, Binance, and others with teams of lawyers and advisors have always known it. They are profit-seeking entities, and they will always comply with whatever regulations they are required to, or they’ll be banned from large markets like the EU, U.S., and others.
Everything is changing before our eyes in the digital currency industry. With bans on anonymous transactions well underway, the U.S. SEC circling the likes of Ripple and Tether, and Satoshi’s Bitcoin slowly being understood as an electronic cash system designed for small casual payments that works within the law and which is always subject to it, things are ever so slowly changing for the better. If the EU votes to pass the new rules, it will be another nail in the coffin for the false narrative plaguing the industry."
And the problem with this is that it sets a precedent and entrenches a trend of increasing state control.
What do you think about it? Are you as pessimistic as me or this article?
Edit:
go to page 2 for the key proposals of the draft.
Also:
PLEASE REALIZE THAT franky's ARGUMENTS ARE GARBAGE. As they are based on a former draft on a slightly different subject, that didn't pass,
as I've shown on page 2. 
