The verification forms for all account Tiers have now been enabled. In order to ensure that every user will have able time to update their account’s status, LocalBitcoins has extended the deadline to provide Tier verification. Existing users will have until the 1st of October to upgrade their verification according to their account’s respective Tiers.
As promised in our previous blog post, we are now glad to announce that LocalBitcoins is launching during June a new identity verification system. The new ID verification process introduces 4 different account levels distinguished by trade and transaction volume and a progressive verification system, where users gradually verify their accounts as their activity in the platform increases.
On Wednesday 13th March 2019, the Finnish Parliament has voted and approved a proposal for a new Act on Virtual Currency Service Providers and an amendment to the Act on Detecting and Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing ("AML law") that will bring virtual currency services (i.e. custodian wallet providers and exchanges) like LocalBitcoins under the AML law supervised by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Finland. The Virtual Currency Service Providers Act will come into full effect in the beginning of November 2019 creating a legal status for crypto assets, which should improve significantly Bitcoin’s standing as a viable and legit financial network.
In July 2018, the European Commission brought into force the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (Directive 2018/843 of the European Union, also known as 5AMLD) which for the first time takes into consideration virtual currencies. 5AMLD includes virtual currency exchange services and custodian wallet providers in its scope. Even though EU member states are given a transposition period until January 2020 for implementing the directive, Finland has already drafted new legislation concerning virtual currency services, amending its Anti-Money Laundering Act in accordance with 5AMLD.
We have developed several tools that can help make transacting with Bitcoin cheaper in certain cases. One feature is offchain-only option for our merchant tool. Other is the recv tag in the QR code for deposits or invoice payments. Note that this blog post is aimed towards developers, merchants and/or service providers.