The US Government wants to be able to track cryptocurrency transactions.

The United States Treasury has proposed new rules requiring banks and money service businesses to submit reports and keep records on cryptocurrency transactions. They would also have to verify their customers in the same way as for existing fiat money regulations.

The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on the matter, which is available here in PDF form, citing ransomware payments and thefts of virtual currency by nation state actors such as the Lazarus Group. 

FinCEN says it wants to combat the illicit use of virtual currencies by creating a reporting obligation for banks and financial services providers, which would cover cryptocurrency in hosted or unhosted wallets.

Under the proposed regime, financial institutions would be required to file a report with FinCEN if a customer transacts cryptocurrency with a value of US$10,000 or more.

Additionally, institutions trading and exchanging cryptocurrency would be subject to know your customer (KYC) regulations for any transactions over US$3,000.

FinCEN acknowledged that some cryptocurrencies “pose particularly severe illicit finance challenges” as they employ techniques to hide transactions, such as Monero, Zcash, Dash, Komodo and Beam.