Global Digital Finance Distributes Comments on FATF Draft on VASPs
April 22, 2021 @ 7:49 pm By JD Alois
Global Digital Finance (GDF), an organization that advocates on behalf of the digital asset industry, has distributed a letter sent to the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) pertaining to guidelines regarding the regulation of virtual assets and virtual asset service providers or “VASPs.”
FATF is a global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog. An inter-governmental organization, FATF seeks to set standards that aim to prevent illicit activities. FATF reports more than 200 countries and jurisdictions that are committed to implementing FATF guidelines.
For some time now, FATF has targeted the emerging digital asset or crypto sector for a more stringent regulatory approach. Perhaps most notably, is the “travel rule” where VASPs may be required to maintain detailed information on both buyers and sellers of crypto-assets.
Photo: Quan Yajun/Sipa Asia
Visitors enjoy an encryption art exhibition in Beijing. Artists such as Beeple, whose work is shown here, sell NFTs of their digital works for millions of dollars.
Modern graphics and rare trading cards are starting to look a lot like a new asset class through digital non-fungible tokens, but institutional investors some of which have long been attracted to fine art markets are not sold on the concept yet.
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are non-interchangeable, digital signature-based collectible goods, which are stored in a digital format. NFTs exploded in the first quarter of the year on blockchain-run platforms such as OpenSea.
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Esma reiterates cryptoassets warning
Europe’s main securities regulator has repeated its warning on the danger of investing in unregulated cryptoassets.
The statement from the European Securities Markets Authority (Esma) was part of its ‘Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities 2021’ report.
“Crypto-assets come in many forms but the majority of them remain unregulated in the EU,” states the report. “This means that consumers buying and/or holding these instruments do not benefit from the guarantees and safeguards associated with regulated financial services.”
Esma had issued a similar warning in February 2018 but felt compelled to repeat itself given that virtual currencies like bitcoin “continue to attract public attention” .
(MENAFN - Asia Times) Hong Kong s crypto industry stakeholders are actively opposing a new law that would restrict trading to professional investors, shutting 93% of the population out of the market, the South China Morning Post reports .
Global Digital Finance , a body that represents crypto exchanges including OKCoin, BitMEX, Huobi and Coinbase, told the paper that the proposed law would force retail traders to turn to unregulated platforms.
In an effort to strengthen anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures in line with recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Hong Kong s Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau published the proposal in November 2020.