EU Chief Asks The Member States To Implement Cryptocurrency Regulations

In the wake of G20 Summit, the chief of European Commission asked its member states to apply the European directive asap for cryptocurrency regulations. Furthermore, EU Vice-President stated the concern is not cryptocurrencies being a risk but consumer protection, hence the directive to include crypto exchanges into EU’s anti-money laundering framework.

EU members to Impose cryptocurrency regulations

As the G20 summit descends upon us, a lot of regulatory commission can be seen taking place. Recently, France made a U-turn by introducing a flexible framework to make the country a friendly jurisdiction for the ICOs.

Now, EU has come forward and calling its member states to implement the new regulations on cryptocurrencies as soon as possible.

Valois Dombrovskis, the Vice-President of EU Commission spoke with Bloomberg regarding the concern Brussels was having about the risks surrounding bitcoin among other cryptocurrencies. He then called on the member states to impose the latest European directive for cryptocurrency regulations that is basically looking to include the cryptocurrency exchanges in the anti-money laundering framework of the association.

As stated by him:

“Last week we had a roundtable on cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings to discuss what is the potential EU response to this phenomenon and some of the things which are emerging from it.”

Also, read… G20 Meeting: Crypto G20 Summit To Focus On Money Laundering Issues

Cryptos not a risk but concerns for consumer protection

However, the good news is Dombrovskis has admitted that cryptocurrencies aren’t considered a risk to the financial stability of the association by EU Commission, “First, we do not see it now as a system risk to the financial stability, not least because trading volumes in Europe are relatively small. Europe is less than 5 percent of the total cryptocurrency trading.”

The concern is majorly the consumer protection that raised the fears among authorities as explained by him:

“But we see concerns for investors or consumers protection, so there we have asked the European Supervisory Authority to update a warning which they put out a couple of weeks ago, clearly telling to potential investors that there is nothing actually backing cryptocurrencies, it’s basically demand and supply. And there are substantial risks of losing your investment.”

Dombrovskis further enunciated:

“A second concern regards anti-money laundering, so there we already have a proposal to include cryptocurrency exchanges in the scope of our anti-money laundering framework. Now that this agreement has been reached we call on all EU member states to transpose this directive as soon as possible so that those provisions enter into force.”

It would be interesting to watch the EU’s approach in G20 Summit and the effect it would have on the cryptocurrency prices. As of now, bitcoin is riding at $8,314 and the entire market is experiencing green.

What are your views on EU’s stance on cryptocurrency regulations and its call to member states? Share your thoughts with us!