Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice President of the European Commission, said this Friday in Vienna that they are looking at a “regulatory mapping of crypto assets.” Dombrovskis said:
“We see that crypto-assets are here to stay. Despite the recent turbulence, this market continues to grow.
In particular initial coin offerings, or ICOs, we see they have the potential to emerge as a viable form of alternative financing.
Already last year, ICOs helped raise over 6 billion dollars in funding and this year this figure will be substantially bigger.”
The commissioner said they are looking at what regulations may be needed in regards to cryptocurrencies and ICOs. Dombrovskis said:
“One challenge with crypto-assets is how to categorise and classify them, and whether and how to apply existing EU financial rules to these assets or if we need new EU rules.
In this context, we are currently working together with European Supervisory Auhtorities [sic] on what we call regulatory mapping of crypto assets to answer exactly these questions.
Many Member States today supported the need for such mapping, so we expect to conclude this assessment later this year. This will provide a solid ground to build on and to decide on further steps in this area.”
Estonia has risen as a major destination of choice within EU for ICOs. Switzerland is another, but they’re not within EU. While Brexit Britain is leaving.
Estonia could therefore provide a viable alternative to the United States with the EU country giving access to the entire European Union which in combination is the biggest market in the world.
France too is trying to tap into the ICO phenomena with new proposals hopefully to be presented sometime this autumn, with the commission further looking at streamlining potential regulations across the EU.
One advantage for ICOs may be the lack of any burdensome requirements for fundraising up to circa $10 million in EU, while for US it is only $1 million.
It is unclear however what sort of regulatory mapping they have in mind with the European Commission somewhat behind other jurisdictions when it comes to cryptos and ICOs.
Copyrights Trustnodes.com
