Cash payments over 10,000 euros will be punishable in the future. The EU parliament agreed Wednesday on a legislative package to close money laundering loopholes.

The regulations provide stricter due diligence and reporting requirements for banks and asset managers offering crypto investments, for example. This includes customer identity checks. Suspicious activity must be reported to the relevant authorities.

The regulations also affect professional soccer clubs "involved in high-value financial transactions with investors or sponsors."

It also introduces stricter control provisions for individuals with total assets over €50 million, as well as an EU-wide cap of €10,000 on cash payments.

A new anti-money laundering and terrorist financing authority will be set up in Frankfurt to oversee the new rules.

Patrick Hansen, EU director at Circle, rejects the idea that anonymous crypto transactions or self-custody wallets would be banned, as reported by several online media outlets. Essentially, the requirements are in line with previous laws, Hansen said. Provisions for crypto-asset service providers (CASP), for example, are already covered by MiCA. "The AMLR now explicitly prohibits CASPs from offering anonymous accounts, which means that a crypto storage company may not offer services to anonymous users," Hansen explains. However, this is "already prohibited under existing AML regulations anyway, so nothing new."

He sees it as positive that the €1,000 limit for payments via self-custody wallets has been removed in the final version. "So you can use your self-custody wallets to purchase goods/services in the EU without restrictions," Hansen says.

The legislation has yet to be formally adopted by the Council.