2019 FATF Recommendations

This week the G7 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced new virtual currency “recommendations” that lay the groundwork for an extensive new worldwide regulatory regime for cryptocurrency exchanges. Once enacted into law by member countries these laws will require bitcoin exchanges, and even individual traders, to collect invasive KYC/AML information on their clients. They will also require that this information be shared with national regulators and other regulated exchanges. These sorts of rules put every bitcoin trader’s privacy at risk and lay the groundwork for attacking Bitcoin’s role as a fungible permission-less global store of value.

Bytabit

The Bytabit team is building a new way for bitcoin buyers and sellers to exchange bitcoins and preserve their privacy in the face of attacks by groups like the FATF. Our mobile app facilitates the exchange of bitcoin for fiat currencies directly between users. Bytabit never has custodial control over either the national currency or bitcoin traded with our app. Bitcoin is held by a two-of-three multi-signature bitcoin transaction until the national currency is received by the bitcoin seller directly from the buyer via a bank transfer. Each trader controls one key of the multi-signature transaction and Bytabit controls a third key that can only be used if one of the traders requests arbitration. All details about the trade are encrypted locally by the app before a trade is initiated so that this information can only be seen by the traders involved. …