G20 Members Agreed to Prepare Crypto Regulation Recommendations by July 2018

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by Julia Sakovich · 3 min read
G20 Members Agreed to Prepare Crypto Regulation Recommendations by July 2018
Photo: G20 Argentina / Flickr

The world’s economic leaders agreed to monitor the industry and to develop regulation proposals but no serious actions will be taken in the near future.

The world’s economic leaders gathered in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the G20 summit, reached an agreement to keep monitoring the crypto sphere and to develop proposals of cryptocurrency regulations by July 2018.

It has become known from the G20 communique which states: “We call on international standard-setting bodies to continue their monitoring of crypto-assets and their risks, according to their mandates, and assess multilateral responses as needed”.

In the document it can be noticed that the finance leaders prefer to refer to cryptocurrencies as “crypto-assets,” which shows their attitude to cryptos as assets and not currencies in their common sense.

They also highlighted that cryptos do not have key attributes of sovereign currencies. Despite this fact, financial stability tools can be implemented. The economic leaders positively welcomed a possibility to apply the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards to crypto-assets which could greatly contribute to addressing financial crimes.

Among the reasons why the G20 members haven’t done something earlier in this sphere is their opinion that cryptocurrencies are too small relative to the financial system and do not pose risks to global financial stability at the moment. As the chair of the Financial Stability Board Mark Carney wrote in his official letter in the run-up-to G20 summit, at the recent peak of cryptocurrencies their combined global market value was less than 1% of total global GDP.

But according to Argentina’s Central Bank head Frederico Sturzenegger, cryptocurrencies should be examined, nevertheless, more information is needed before taking any decisions regarding possible regulations. At the same time, he said that they had established a deadline for developing regulations proposals and it would be in July.

Italy’s central bank governor Ignazio Visco also expected that the group of financial leaders would entrust the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) with the task to elaborate standards for the industry.

Nevertheless, before any final decision will be taken, the experts should bridge the existing differences. For example, France advocates rather drastic measures, such as banning deposits and loans in cryptocurrencies as well as promoting and marketing of investments based on them to the wide audience.

Speaking after the group’s gathering, a senior Japanese finance ministry official also highlighted that some form of regulation for crypto-assets should be eventually introduced. “Many G20 members didn’t take crypto-assets too positively and said some form of regulation was necessary”, he said.

In any case, not all countries support this approach. For example, Brazil’s Central Bank president Ilan Goldfajn has announced that cryptocurrencies won’t be regulated in his country.

It’s also worth mentioning that a rather positive tone of the G-20 cryptocurrency meeting has caused a boost on the crypto market. The price of Bitcoin increased above $9,000 after the positive news from G-20. At press-time, according to CoinMarketCap,  Bitcoin is traded for $9,011.96.

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