European governments are in favor of regulating bitcoin amid growing fears that the world’s most popular digital currency is used by money launderers, drug dealers and terrorists, Bloomberg writes.
Minister of Economy and Finance of France Bruno Le Maire said that he would ask his colleagues from the G20 countries to consider the issue of joint regulation of bitcoin. His fears are shared by the Italian government, which will be open for discussion of regulation, a government official in Rome told Bloomberg. The European Union also introduces new rules that will be applied to bitcoin.
“I do not like it: it can hide activities such as drug trafficking and terrorism,” Le Mair said on the LCI television channel, adding that he also has concerns about those who, who invests in bitcoin. “There is an obvious speculative risk, we need to look at it, study it.”
France is not alone in the desire to regulate the currency. According to the official in Rome, Italian Finance Minister Pierre Carlo Padoan will be ready to discuss the proposal of LeMaire. So far, however, the ministry has not received any request from Paris, the interlocutor of Bloomberg clarified.
EU lawmakers and representatives of the member states agreed on Friday to review the rules of the anti-money laundering block, extending them to firms that are “responsible for the storage and transfer of virtual currencies,” follows from the statement of the European Commission. These companies “will have to identify their customers and report any suspicious activity.”
From the point of view of the UK government, crypto-currencies can create conditions and facilitate the commission of cybercrime. “At present, there is little evidence that they are used for money laundering, but this risk is expected to grow,” the country’s finance ministry said. “That’s why these rules will help.”
A spokesman for the German Ministry of Finance said that the agency was closely monitoring the development of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. The ministry noted that the financial regulator of the country Bafin has already warned about the risks of crypto currency for consumers.
Elizabeth Regel, Bafin Chief Executive Officer for Securities Supervision, said in a speech on November 30 in Frankfurt that regulation at a purely national level is not sufficient due to the cross-border nature of transactions with digital currencies. “The Internet, in particular, does not know national borders,” Regel said.
On the eve of the launch of trading in futures for Bitcoin on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, CME triggered another surge in crypto currency. The bitcoin rate exceeded the $
20K mark. A week earlier Cboe Global Markets Inc. launched similar derivatives for the crypto currency, which was created after the financial crisis of 2008 as an alternative to banks and state currencies.
