FinCEN, Fed Withdraw Proposal That Would Have Written Crypto Into Travel Rule Definitions

FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) and the Federal Reserve have scrapped a 2020 notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would have required banks and other financial institutions to collect and pass along customer details on much smaller international transfers, and that would have named crypto in the rules outright.
FinCEN announced the withdrawal on Nov. 6, and the joint notice was published in the Federal Register on Nov. 9. The two agencies said they “will not take further action on this NPRM.” The current $3,000 threshold stays in place for the Recordkeeping Rule, which requires institutions to collect and keep sender and recipient details on transfers, and the Travel Rule, which requires them to send that information along with the transfer to the institution that handles it next.

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Why the Agencies Pulled It
The notice gave two reasons. The first was age: the plan is more than five years old, and the agencies want fresh feedback before trying anything like it again. The withdrawal is meant “to provide certainty to the public that no final rule will be issued without an additional opportunity for public comment,” they wrote.
Second, they pointed to changes since 2020 in convertible virtual currency (CVC), the agencies’ term for crypto that has an equivalent value as currency or stands in for it without being legal tender, writing that “CVC markets have continued to mature, and new legal frameworks are emerging.” The notice cited the GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law enacted in July 2025, and said any future crypto-related changes to the two rules should take such developments into account. FinCEN Deputy Director Jimmy L. Kirby and Benjamin McDonough, secretary of the Fed’s Board of Governors, signed the notice; FinCEN’s release did not include comment from any official.
What the 2020 Plan Would Have Done
The October 2020 proposal would have dropped the $3,000 threshold to $250 for transfers that start or end outside the United States. It also would have spelled out that “money” in both rules covers CVC and any digital asset that is legal tender, for transfers inside the U.S. as well as across borders. FinCEN’s May 2019 guidance had already said the two rules may cover crypto transfers handled by nonbank firms, according to the proposal.
Reaction to the crypto language was mixed, according to the notice. Crypto service providers and their trade groups generally opposed it; support came from some banks, money services businesses and their trade associations. The agencies received nearly 3,000 comments, most of them form letters, and commenters generally opposed the lower threshold. Some argued that inflation since 1995 justified raising the line, not cutting it, while others warned that a $250 threshold would put a heavy burden on financial institutions, especially smaller ones, disrupt consumers’ ability to send remittances overseas, or expose firms to more liability for the personal data they keep.
What Changes and What Doesn’t
For banks and crypto firms, the withdrawal leaves day-to-day obligations where they were, since the $3,000 line still applies and the notice does not loosen any existing Travel Rule duty. What it removes is a pending proposal that sat open for six years, so any future push to lower the cross-border threshold or write crypto into the definitions would have to start with a new round of public comment.
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