Abstract
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule extends anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) obligations to virtual asset service providers (VASPs), requiring the exchange of originator and beneficiary information for virtual asset (VA) transfers. While enhancing transaction transparency, it introduces critical challenges in protecting personally identifiable information (PII) and ensuring compliance with privacy frameworks such as the GDPR, MiCA, AMLR and CCPA. This paper examines how privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) can balance FATF compliance with data protection principles. It analyzes global regulatory landscapes and evaluates technologies including tokenization, multi-party computation(MPC), homomorphic encryption (HE), zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), trusted execution environment (TEE), and self-sovereign identity (SSI). The study further reviews leading Travel Rule implementations such as TRISA, TRUST, Sygna Bridge, VerifyVASP, Shyft Veriscope, OpenVASP/TRP, and Notabene’s TAP, highlighting their approaches to secure, privacy-preserving data exchange. Findings indicate a paradigm shift from centralized compliance architectures toward federated and cryptographically verifiable models. Integrating PETs enables regulatory transparency while minimizing PII exposure, fostering a privacy-by-design approach to AML/CFT compliance. This convergence of technological innovation and regulatory alignment represents a sustainable path for global crypto governance.
| Translated title of the contribution | Privacy-enhancing technologies for FATF crypto Travel Rule: balancing compliance and data protection |
|---|---|
| Original language | Polish |
| Title of host publication | Sztuczna Inteligencja i Cyberbezpieczeństwo - 2025 |
| Editors | Jacek Rysiński, Dorota Więcek |
| Place of Publication | Bielsko Biala, Poland |
| Chapter | 5 |
| Pages | 45-56 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9788367652520 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 5 Dec 2025 |