Given that regulators have been paying more attention in recent weeks, the talks should be interesting to watch.
The first meeting of the G20’s Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors under India’s presidency will take place from February 23 to 25 in Bengaluru. According to a report by Reuters, the group will talk about cryptocurrencies, among other things.
The host, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, has said that the group is looking into whether or not it can regulate cryptocurrencies as a whole.
Common Regulations Proposal
“We are talking with all nations, if we can make some standard operating procedure which is followed by everyone to make a regulatory framework, and if it can be effective,” Reuters quoted her in a February 11 report.
She said that, because the technologies involved are so complicated, the G20 is looking into the possibility of making a set of rules for cryptocurrencies that all countries can follow.
The Indian government has talked a lot about the need for a global and coordinated approach to these kinds of regulations. On the one hand, 115 million crypto investors are putting a lot of pressure on them, and on the other, regulators don’t want any digital assets in their financial system.
Regulatory Crackdowns
In the past few weeks, crypto regulations have become a hot topic, with US regulators taking a hard line against some of the services offered by leading companies.
For example, the veteran cryptocurrency exchange Kraken had to stop providing staking services to US investors and pay $30 million to settle the case. In another case, the New York Department of Financial Services told the company that made BUSD, the third largest stable coin with $16 billion in circulation, to stop doing business (NYDFS). Both have been charged with selling securities that have not been registered.
Also, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is suing BUSD’s issuer Paxos in a separate case, has warned other crypto companies that they could face similar action if they are found to be breaking existing laws. But many people think that the SEC may be doing too much regulation because there aren’t clear rules.
Regulations Catching Up
On the other hand, the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation was approved by the European Union in October 2022. Regulations under MiCA are very detailed, but they haven’t gone into effect yet. This gives crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) time to adapt and meet the requirements before they become law.
G20 is made up of both the US and the EU. Given this, it would be interesting to hear what the finance ministers and central bank governors have to say about how to regulate crypto at their next meeting.
