Schlagwort: blockchain regulation

France’s cultural institutions need to develop an NFT policy and support Web3 innovation, the French president said in an interview.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking to win this year’s election in a second round against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, believes that Web3 and the metaverse offer a huge opportunity for the promotion of culture and creative content.

Web3 presents a ‘requirement and opportunity’

In an interview with a local media house, Macron highlighted the potential benefits of the digital revolution, including the place of the metaverse in developing cultural policies.

“The metaverse has a huge potential in culture and leisure thanks to its applications in music, concerts, art exhibitions, etc. We cannot consider our cultural policy without this revolution,” he noted.

France, he added, has a unique opportunity to have its way of life – language, heritage, monuments, and cities – exist in the metaverse. Putting these in the metaverse will create a “digital historiography” of France’s collective history, he said.

According to him, it’s important that France’s main cultural institutions formulate an NFT policy that will help promote and protect players within the space.

Overall, Macron says Web3 “represents a requirement, as well as an opportunity not to be missed.” It’s an opportunity that France and Europe should seize if they want to become leaders in the future of the web.

On MiCA regulation

The French president’s remarks come a few weeks after the European Parliament voted on the restrictive Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA) regulation. EU lawmakers adopted the regulation, introduced in 2020 and which seeks to cover crypto assets not captured under existing financial regulations, in March.

Commenting on the move, Macron noted that while France supports innovation, regulations are crucial as they bring about “uniformity of rules.” This, he noted, would offer Europe the foundation needed to “create a unified market.”

“I am in favor of making rapid progress on the MiCA regulation, based on the balanced approach promoted by the Council and inspired by the French framework,” he said. 

The French leader also reiterated his belief that the regulation would not hurt innovation.

“France will pay close attention that the text does not prevent innovation and remains as neutral as possible in terms of technology,” he told the French media outlet.

According to him, the success of Ledger and Sorare (two of France’s leading financial technology startups) is a clear signal of that intention.

In other remarks, Macron said he would want to see Europe take the lead in the digital era revolution. He would wish to see Europe not depend on US and China in this.

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Anchorage Digital Bank has agreed to remedial action and will appoint a Bank Secrecy Act officer to help ensure compliance.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the United States national bank regulator, has issued a consent order against Anchorage Digital Bank, according to a news release published on Thursday, 21 April.

Anchorage Digital was the first digital asset bank to receive regulatory approval from the OCC. Granted in January 2021, the conditional approval to the company’s national trust charter application enabled it to change to Anchorage Digital Bank, National Association.

The OCC, however, says the formerly Anchorage Trust Company failed to implement the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements it had agreed to as part of the condition to operating as a federally regulated digital asset bank.

It’s Anchorage Digital’s failure to comply with the KYC and AML provisions that prompted the order, the OCC said in the release.

“The OCC holds all nationally chartered banks to the same high standards, whether they engage in traditional or novel activities,” said Michael J. Hsu, the Acting Comptroller of the Currency.

“When institutions fall short, we will take action and hold them accountable to ensure compliance with federal laws and regulations,” he added.

Anchorage Digital has started remedial action

As part of the remedial action necessitated by the order, Anchorage is required to appoint a compliance committee of not less than three members. It’s also to draw an action plan toward addressing all BSA deficiencies.

The bank has thirty (30) days from the date of the Consent Order to submit the action plan toward achieving and sustaining compliance with the relevant KYC and AML laws.

Anchorage has also agreed to hire a Bank Secrecy Act officer and provide all the necessary support for them to work towards compliance. Other than that, the bank will need to ensure higher customer due diligence, as well as customer risk identification checks, are in place.

The OCC noted in the order that Anchorage Digital has instituted “corrective action” and pledged to ensure full compliance.

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The ADGM intends to issue similar regulatory approvals to other global and local companies

The Abu Dhabi Global Market has announced that the world’s biggest crypto exchange Binance has received an in-principle to operate in the Emirate. The approval marks a crucial milestone in Binance’s goal to operate as a fully licensed firm.

The approval permits Binance to operate as a broker-dealer in a wide range of digital assets including cryptocurrencies in Abu Dhabi. This is Binance’s third regulatory approval in the middle east after similar advances in Bahrain and Dubai.

The ADGM is an international financial free zone in the UAE. Historically it has been a frontrunner in providing regulatory and supervisory oversight for financial services in its region. Commenting on Binance’s efforts to establish new dimensions of digital asset trading across the world, ADGM said:

“The IPA is part of Binance’s plans in establishing itself as a fully-regulated virtual asset service provider in an internationally recognized and well-regulated financial centre.”

Dhaher bin Dhaher, CEO of ADGM, welcomed Binance to UAE’s biggest city Abu Dhabi and promised to aid efforts by the exchange to establish its presence in the emirate.

In a bid to improve Abu Dhabi’s position as a hub for virtual assets and the digital economy, the ADGM also plans to provide similar regulatory approvals for other deserving local and global companies. The pro-crypto intent comes amid the fast-paced growth and rising importance of the industry.

Previously, prominent crypto exchange FTX was awarded an operational license in Dubai.

In March, the ADGM published a consultation paper that proposed that NFT trading in the jurisdiction should be allowed for ADGM-licensed companies.

In response, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), the region’s chief regulator stated that NFTs traded in consultation with the ADGM will be treated as intellectual property rather than as financial instruments. Further, facilitating such NFT trading will require companies to comply with strict Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Sanctions Rules.

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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this while appearing before the US House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.

With sanctions hitting Russia hard since its invasion of Ukraine, and foreign reserves drying up, some people have opined that the country could turn to crypto to try to evade the sanctions.

Leading exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken, have previously said it’s unlikely that Russia will take this route. 

But while the US has warned exchanges against “helping” Russia by facilitating suspicious transactions, experts’ overall assessment is that crypto is an unlikely option.

No “significant” crypto for sanctions evasion

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has added her voice to this outlook, with her comments coming during a House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.

“We are aware of the possibility, clearly, that crypto could be used as a tool to evade sanctions and we are carefully monitoring to make sure that doesn’t occur,” Yellen noted.

However, she told legislators that the US has the capacity to tell if there were any large-scale transactions related to Russia. She added that authorities were on top of this, with her remarks suggesting that there has been no ‘significant” pointer to Russia using crypto to evade sanctions.

“We haven’t seen significant evasion through crypto so far, but we’ll monitor carefully and use our authorities that we do have to make sure that this isn’t a major avenue for evasion,” the former US Federal Reserve Chair said in her testimony before the House committee.

In early March, Yellen said that talk of crypto being used to evade sanctions was there. However, she reiterated that federal authorities were monitoring the sector and that most crypto exchanges likely to be used are subject to AML (anti money laundering) guidelines.

The platforms also have to adhere to sanction rules, and that it’s not a sector through which evasion can “completely” be advanced, she added.

Yellen’s remarks mirror conclusions drawn by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, whose testimony before the US Senate Banking Committee in March also pointed to no significant evidence on the blockchain.

On Wednesday, US legislators introduced a bill that seeks to have US-based exchanges ban transactions for Russia-based users. The new bill also seeks to give President Joe Biden powers to sanction foreign-based crypto exchanges that would be deemed to be helping Russia.

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In an attempt to implement tighter crypto rules, Singapore’s unicameral parliament has approved a law that will ensure all virtual asset service providers (VASPs) operating in Singapore apply for licenses.

This comes amid a spirited effort by Singapore to put in place regulations to counter money laundering and financing of terrorism.

Some of the key points within the approved Financial Services and Markets Bill include:

• Assigning new powers to Singapore’s Monetary Authority to bar persons considered as unfit to perform key functions, roles, and activities from working in the fields of payments and risk management within Singapore.
• Increasing the maximum penalty imposed on financial institutions that disrupt their services to $738,000 (SGD 1 million).

Scrapped DBS plans to open crypto exchange services to retail investors

The parliament passed the bill after Singapore’s giant banking giant DBS did away with its plans to open crypto exchange services to retail investors due to rising regulatory concerns. Previously, the bank had made its intentions of opening members-only services on the DBS Digital Exchange crypto trading platform to retail traders.

It is not clear how the new regulatory framework shall impact major crypto players including DBS within the country. The law might hinder some crypto players from entering the South-Asian country market.

In December 2021, cryptocurrency exchange giant Binance announced that it would shut down its Singapore exchange and rather focus on a “blockchain innovation hub” in the country.

Last month the High Court of Singapore made ruling recognizing crypto as property and granted propriety injunctions against persons suspected of engaging in theft.

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