Stephanie Douse 
Bitcoin and the larger cryptocurrency market are once again under bearish pressure despite a solid start to the week. The cryptocurrency market as a whole has dropped 5% wiping out more than $100 billion in investor wealth.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is down 5.27 percent as of the time of writing this article and has fallen below $45,000. BTC is now trading under $45K for the first time in the last four days.
This reaction in the crypto space comes as the European Parliament passes new laws prohibiting unhosted and non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets. More than 90 legislators from the ECON and LIBE committees voted in support of making anonymous crypto transactions illegal on Thursday, March 31st.
This is part of a larger effort to tighten money-laundering regulations in the crypto space. Crypto service providers and exchanges will be required to acquire the personal information of individuals trading more than 1,000 Euros using self-hosted wallets under these new guidelines before facilitating the transaction.
These rules, according to legislators, are intended to identify and block potentially questionable transactions. Self-hosted wallets are the ones in which the user manages their private keys rather than depending on third-party institutions to keep track of them.
Some legislators are opposed to the move
EU lawmakers from the European People’s Party (EPP) have spoken out against the decision, calling it controversial changes. The EPP’s economic spokesperson, Mark Ferber stated:
“We need to take AML risks in crypto seriously, but should not ban unhosted wallets. This would be the equivalent of banning cash — unnecessary and disproportionate!
Such proposals are neither warranted nor proportionate. With this approach of regulating new technologies, the European Union will fall further behind other, more open-minded jurisdictions”.
Furthermore, proponents of the cryptocurrency business have blasted at the proposal. These policies, according to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, are “anti-innovation, anti-privacy, and anti-law enforcement.” He went on to say that the restrictions penalize bitcoin holders disproportionately.