Chainalysis Hires FinCEN Vet to Tackle Crypto's New 'Travel Rule' Challenge

The blockchain investigations firm Chainalysis has hired a top official from the main U.S. anti-money-laundering agency to help its cryptocurrency clients comply with tough new international data-sharing requirements.

Announced Wednesday, Mike Mosier, the former chief of strategic advancement and tactical development at the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, has joined Chainalysis as chief technical counsel.

Mosier has spent a decade in various financial regulatory bodies: before FinCEN, he worked at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the National Security Council and the Department of Justice's Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section.

Leveraging his experience in financial crime prevention, Mosier will first and foremost tackle legal and technical solutions for the "Travel rule" that is now being imposed on the crypto industry by the Financial Action Task Force.

While this is a longstanding requirement for banks when they transmit money on customers' behalf, it presents a daunting challenge for the crypto industry given the pseudonymous nature of wallet addresses.

Chainalysis itself had warned during the public consultation period that this requirement would force "Onerous investment and friction" onto regulated firms, potentially putting some out of business and driving activity into the shadows.

The challenge ahead. Chainalysis will keep engaging with the blockchain community, as it has been for a while now, to work out technical solutions for implementing the travel rule, Mosier said.

"There have been a few ideas, but I think it's a bit too early to see something that will work," he said, adding that looking at how banks struggled to implement the original travel rule and how they solved that issue might be helpful.

Talking about his motivation to join the blockchain industry, Mosier said that working in financial crime prevention he has been looking at new areas of financial monitoring.

Getting experienced government alumni on board is especially helpful when regulators are paying such close attention to the crypto space, Chainalysis CEO and co-founder Michael Gronager said in the company's announcement.