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Swan co-founder Yan Pritzker said the firm is pro-privacy and doesn’t oppose customers’ use of such services, but to work, it has to follow FinCEN regulations. Bitcoin services platform Swan Bitcoin warned its customers that it would be forced to terminate accounts found interacting with crypto-mixing due to the regulatory obligations of its partner banks.  Customers were informed about the policy in a letter suggesting the changes are due to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed rule establishing new responsibilities on firms processing transactions from mixing services . On Nov. 12, the co-founder of the firm, Yan Pritzker, took to X (formerly Twitter) to explain that although the firm is not against the use of privacy mixing tools and services, it has to adhere to the obligations of its partner banking institutions. Pritzker said that the proposed FinCEN rule is poorly written and covers a huge amount of Bitcoin-related activities, such as using BTC addresses ...

The freeze does not affect Binance accounts owned by ordinary Palestinian civilians. Crypto exchange Binance has frozen accounts linked to Hamas militants as per requests from Israeli law enforcement. According to an Oct. 10 WeChat post by Yi He, the exchange’s co-founder, the freeze is targeted toward Hamas and not the people of Palestine. As stated by He: “Hamas is a designated terrorist organization by the United Nations. Therefore, any organization, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate on the receipt of freeze requests. This is not something Binance can decide on its own.“ Yi He further explained that no trading platforms can refuse such requests: “Palestine has an organized government. Hamas is a local militant group. They kill civilians; that’s the problem. Hamas is not Palestine; the freeze is targeted towards Hamas, not Palestine.“ Earlier on Oct. 10, local news outlet Calcalist reported that Israeli officials froze the crypto accounts of Hamas mili...