Crystal Blockchain Analytics, a spin-off of the Bitfury Group, has released a report covering the international flow of bitcoin, in light of the new Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines on the global crypto space. Crystal released this report on September 9, 2019, intending to produce a formal record of the sort of international bitcoin transfers that the new FATF regulations are intended to more closely monitor. The record of their data collection goes back to 2013, and has revealed a number of interesting facts about the dynamic nature of the crypto space.In particular, the tracking from 2013 paints an interesting picture about the relative prominence of countries in the G20 over the years. Specifically, nations with smaller economies have been taking up a larger and larger percentage of all international crypto transactions, especially since exchanges registered in China have shut down operations almost completely since 2017. Even with several countries holding a powerfully disproportionate number of exchanges, with the United Kingdom operating nearly as many as the rest of the European Union put together, the traffic from other nations’ exchanges is growing rapidly.The report warns, however, that this trend may change in several ways as the FATF regulations are implemented. Currently, it claims that “nearly 10 percent of all exchanges surveyed do not have countries of registration.” The report predicts that this number will plummet as the FATF begins to formally crack down on exchanges that do not have an official registration or license to operate. Although there is not a stable trend to the growth of these unregistered exchanges, their prominence had been rising before these regulations were passed. The report does claim, admittedly, that these measures are likely to reduce global financial crimes.Since the FATF regulations were passed and gained the support of the G20, they have signaled a significant future impact on the crypto space as a whole. In addition to raising concerns about the feasibility of the anonymous model of Bitcoin as a whole, various companies have already begun exploring possible solutions to maintain compliance while protecting user privacy as much as possible. Crystal Blockchain Analytics ran this survey entirely using their own proprietary software, and hopes to be able to offer complex monitoring tools to see the immediate impact of these new regulations on the space and on international crypto commerce altogether.
