EU looks at adding to cryptocurrency regulations

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The European Union is not done considering regulations on the trade of cryptocurrencies, a report from Bloomberg states.

A draft note obtained by the financial news company indicated that a meeting was set on September 7 in Vienna to discuss challenges in governments’ monitoring of cryptocurrencies, particularly their potential use for money laundering, tax evasion and financing of terrorist activity, and whether there was a need a to tighten regulations further. The meeting will be attended by the EU member countries’ finance ministers.

The note also mentioned that regulators were looking to apply blockchain technology, and pointed to how initial coin offerings (ICOs) “have established an effective and efficient way to raise capital.”

In July, EU came out with the EU Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, taking effect on July 9. “The anonymity of virtual currencies allows their potential misuse for criminal purposes,” the directive reads. “To combat the risks related to the anonymity, national Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) should be able to obtain information allowing them to associate virtual currency addresses to the identity of the owner of virtual currency. In addition, the possibility to allow users to self-declare to designated authorities on a voluntary basis should be further assessed.”

Each EU member country is required to adopt the Directive into local laws within 18 months.

Many cryptocurrency exchanges in the EU at present are not diligent with regards to requiring identification of investors, a concern raised in the Directive. “Providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies… as well as custodian wallet providers are under no Union obligation to identify suspicious activity. Therefore, terrorist groups may be able to transfer money into the Union financial system or within virtual currency networks by concealing transfers or by benefiting from a certain degree of anonymity on those platforms,” it reads.

Last month, Blocktrade.com became the first Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II)-compliant cryptocurrency exchange in the EU. Currently operating for beta testing and allowing for the trade of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), BTC, LTC, ETH and XRP, it is expected to launch full operations by September.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.