The participants of the World Economic Forum (WEF) presented recommendations on the regulation of digital assets. The manual was compiled jointly with the Digital Currency Management Consortium, part of the WEF.
The drafters of the document note that one of the key aspects in the regulation of cryptocurrencies is cooperation between governments of various countries and global coordination. Thanks to this, it will be possible to prevent differences in approaches between regulators from different countries and make law enforcement consistent. The authors of the document identified a number of problems in the current regulation of cryptocurrencies, including the attitude to digital assets as traditional financial assets.
“Cryptocurrency assets and their ecosystem do not always fully fit into the existing approach to regulation based on activity and mediation, even in cases where actions with crypto assets repeat actions in the traditional financial market,” the document says.
The manual provides many classifications of the regulatory framework for comparison. For example, results-based regulation and risk-based regulation are considered. The regulation on fines, which is applied in the USA, is singled out separately. Moreover, the authors of the document do not approve of this approach.
The authors emphasize that flexible regulation of the industry is needed, in the development of which not only the authorities of the country, but also representatives of the industry will participate. Regulatory sandboxes, the creation of manuals for cryptocurrency firms and letters about the absence of objections from regulators were cited as positive developments.
“Regulatory developers and industry participants should cooperate and share best practices between countries to ensure consistency and clarity. Since these new technologies are based on transparency, it is quite possible to create the best regulatory tools to solve cross―border problems,” the WEF representatives believe.
Recall that in April, the organizers of the WEF recognized the economic and environmental benefits of bitcoin mining, stating that this activity can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
