Skip to main content

What the European Parliament vote on cryptocurrency regulation really means

xxx

Yesterday it was reported that members of the European Parliament voted in favour of creating a cryptocurrency "watchdog" to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

This is misleading. In fact two parallel initiatives have been conflated in the press announcement: one is the creation of a Virtual Currency Task Force, and the other is the inclusion of virtual currency exchanges within the ambit of the European Anti-Money Laundering Directive.

From What the European Parliament vote on cryptocurrency regulation really means

Indeed. Along with many other people I gave evidence to the European Parliament in their hearings on this subject, and I agree with Siân Jones, of the European Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology Forum, one of the other people who gave evidence and who is quoted in that article as saying "why would you say that casinos have to have all these things, or estate agents, but not virtual currency exchanges"? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

There is no excuse for not taking cards

So we went to the pub. For lunch. Seven of us. Say £20 per head. £100+ quid. Say £50 quid gross for the pub. Colleague goes to order food and drinks and pay at the bar. Apologetic barmaid comes over to explain that their “card machine” is down, so she can only accept cash. Under normal circumstances I would have simply walked out, feeling it wholly inappropriate to reward such a poorly managed establishment and, as a functioning actor in a capitalist economy, done my duty to depress their lunchtime takings. Here’s what we wanted to say: This is absurd. This is 2016 not 1916. Your card machine is down? Well, so what! Are you seriously telling me that mein host has no mobile phone number capable of registering for PingIt or PayM? That none of the staff or the pub itself have a PayPal account that I can send the money to? That neither the owners nor managers not contingency planners thought to tuck an iZettle behind the bar to use when the clunky and expensive GPRS terminal fails for o...
Post a Comment
Read more