Update: September 26th - October 9th, 2022
The European Council passed MiCA, which will now head to the final vote in the European Parliament...
Welcome back,
All I can say is - Keep your eyes on the European news this week, as we may be getting our first all-encompassing crypto regulations passed into law.
I hope you enjoy and see you soon.
-Katja
September 26th - October 9th, 2022
The European Council passed MiCA, which will now head to the final vote in the European Parliament.
Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory package was originally revealed this past summer and now awaits its final round of votes before becoming law. This regulation would standardize the crypto regulatory practices in Europe, so a company receiving regulatory approval in one country would be able to do business in the other EU countries. This would not only provide regulatory clarity but would allow crypto companies to scale more quickly.
[For a breakdown of the latest MiCA draft, see this video.]
In addition to MiCA, members of the European Parliament adopted a resolution to use blockchain for fighting tax evasion and for member states to coordinate on their crypto taxation policies. Besides trying to identify what makes a taxable event, it also calls for a simplified tax treatment for smaller transactions. As the press release stated,
“Blockchain’s unique features could offer a new way to automate tax collection, limit corruption and better identify ownership of tangible and intangible assets allowing for better taxing mobile taxpayers, the resolution claims.”
The IMF also published a crypto regulatory framework that focuses on “unbacked crypto assets.”
This report acknowledges that the crypto market is not large enough to pose a financial stability risk, but says that “growing interlinkages with regulated financial services and the lack of regulation might be.” Because of this, it outlines the following six elements to achieve a “consistent and comprehensive global regulatory framework,”
Setting common definitions
Accessing more (and better) data about crypto
Focusing on risk-based factors for developing requirements
Covering all crypto niches
Stopping crypto companies from getting too big
Implementing same regulations across jurisdictions
[For a more thorough breakdown of this report, see this video. Keep in mind that this report also comes at the same time as US crypto legislation becomes even more unlikely to get passed this year.]
More news …
Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee are pushing the Department of Justice to release their assessment around a US central bank digital currency.
Members of the European Parliament are criticizing the European Central Bank’s decision to allow Amazon to help design the digital euro prototype after Amazon’s “questionable” social and tax policy and alleged violation of EU data protection regulations.
The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Economy announced new headquarters located in the Metaverse, to promote digital services as a growing part of its operations. [This news follows Dubai’s announcement in July 2022 about Dubai Metaverse Strategy to support 40,000+ virtual jobs by 2030.]
Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, said in a recent speech that the government of Japan seeks to promote the digital transformation, which has already included issuing NFTs to local authorities with plans around digitizing national ID cards and expanding the use of NFTs and the metaverse.