The United States Treasury Department may have accidentally widened the window of opportunity for anyone wishing to submit comments regarding the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's new crypto rules.

Final month, the Fiscal Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, proposed rules that would require registered crypto exchanges to verify the identity of people using "an unhosted or otherwise covered wallet" for a transaction of more than $3,000. At the fourth dimension, the regulator stated that stakeholders would have 15 days to respond with comments, afterward clarifying that the submission catamenia would cease on January. iv.

However, co-ordinate to Regulations.gov — the website responsible for accepting comments on the proposed FinCEN rule — crypto users have until tomorrow, Jan. seven at xi:59 pm ET to answer. This effectively means FinCEN may have submitted their proposal on Dec. 23 and non Dec. xx every bit previously reported.

"This is a s--- evidence," said Dayton Young, production director at Fight for the Future, a digital rights group based in Massachusetts. "FinCEN has pushed back the comment deadline for its latest cryptocurrency surveillance proposal [...] because government officials tin't count to xv."

The group has encouraged people to speak out confronting the proposed rule, challenge FinCEN attempted to "ram through this dangerous new surveillance authorization."

When FinCEN appear the new rule, many argued that the period of fourth dimension for submitting comments was insufficient. Young suggested that the regulator extend the time for comments to lx days. Coinbase's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, has also argued in favor of a sixty-day annotate menstruation given the holidays and the ongoing pandemic.

At the time of publication, Regulations.gov is all the same accepting comments beyond the Mon borderline, but it is unclear whether whatever received between January. 5 and seven will be considered valid. Cointelegraph reached out to FinCEN, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.