2023-04-20 11:23:33
Posted Apr 20, 2023, 1:23 PMUpdated on Apr 20, 2023, 1:33 PM
The European Parliament meeting this Thursday adopted two regulations concerning cryptocurrencies. The first, “in the crypto-asset markets”, is better known as MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets). It provides for new obligations specific to players in the ecosystem and particularly to platforms that sell or allow tokens to be exchanged. “We are at the end of an era, that of this unregulated jungle of crypto-assets”welcomed yesterday the MEP and rapporteur Ernest Urtasun (Greens), in plenary session. Several of his counterparts have also recalled the desirability of such a settlement following the collapses of large crypto companies like FTX.
The companies concerned will thus have to be approved by the competent authorities to operate throughout the European Union (EU), and not only in the euro zone, as CASP (Crypto-Asset Service Provider). To do this, they must have an office within the EU, with at least one director on the territory, set up a know-your-client procedure, guarantee their clients ownership of their assets and meet reserve obligations. in traditional currencies at a bank. Information obligations on the energy consumption of tokens have also been introduced.
Several of these provisions are already provided for in French law with the PSAN regime (Provider of Services on Digital Assets) created by the Pacte law adopted in 2019. Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister Delegate for the Digital Transition has also praised the initiative of Paris: “We kind of inspired this framework that will unify the European crypto-asset market”he assured, Wednesday, during a conference in Bercy.
Greatly reduced anonymity
The second regulation “on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets”, better known as TFR (Transfer of Funds Regulation), applies – as its name suggests – to the sending and receiving of tokens. The text, as presented by MEPs on Wednesday, provides that transfers from platform to platform must include the identification of the sender and the receiver from the first euro. A threshold of 1,000 euros had been mentioned previously, in particular for exchanges between a wallet hosted on a personal account (unhosted wallet) and a wallet on a platform. However, “In order to prevent a massive breach, we decided to apply traffic rules to these interactions too”specified the MEP and rapporteur Assita Kanko (Conservatives and Reformists). Exchanges between private wallets are nevertheless exempt from any obligation.
“Thanks to MiCA and TFR, crypto players will be able to start applying basic rules of traditional finance – crazy stuff – like: asking for identities, having insurance, not resorting to market manipulation or insider tradingquipped the MEP Aurore Lalucq (Socialists and Democrats). It’s good. It’s better than nothing. Is that enough? No. » The concern that she points out, like other of her counterparts, is the 18-month application period during which “savers will have no protection”, she says while visibly regretting a specific approach instead of subjecting the sector to the same rules as traditional finance. Others are less pessimistic, such Stefan Berger (Christian Democrats), rapporteur, for whom the texts represent “a good solution that avoids a ban first ».
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