• EU agrees on uniform legal framework for crypto assets
• EU Parliament and EU countries compromise on NFTs
• European Commission adviser believes few assets benefit from NFT exemption
The Korea Blockchain Week 2022, a crypto and blockchain event in Seoul, co-hosted by FactBlock and Hashed from August 7th to 14th, brought together crypto enthusiasts and the brightest minds in the industry for keynotes, panel discussions, pitch -Competitions and investor meetings to network and discuss the future of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, DeFi, NFT, Metaverse, Web3 and much more.
advertising
Trade Bitcoin and other cryptos with leverage (long and short)
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have recently corrected significantly. Trade cryptos such as Bitcoin or Ethereum with leverage at Germany’s No. 1 CFD provider and participate in rising and falling prices.
News on the subject of NFTs also emerged: Peter Kerstens, advisor to the European Commission, explained to the participants how CoinDesk reports that for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are part of a collection, the new crypto rules of the European Union would have to be applied.
EU Parliament and member states agree on crypto directive
On June 30, representatives of the EU Parliament and EU member states agreed on an EU directive for cryptocurrencies called “Markets in Crypto Assets”, or MiCA for short. The new set of rules is scheduled to come into force in the EU by the end of 2023 and create a uniform legal framework for trading crypto assets in the European Union. The focus of regulation should be on protecting investors.
In the future, licenses for companies that want to issue and sell cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Co. in the EU will be required. In addition, the EU wants to be able to trace crypto transfers, which is why crypto platforms – regardless of the amount transferred – must determine information about the sender and recipient and, if necessary, forward it to the responsible authorities. Direct transfers between owners of platform-independent crypto wallets should be left out here – if crypto platforms handle such transactions, however, there should be an obligation to provide information from 1,000 euros. The new regulation is also intended to give stablecoin holders the right to reclaim their money free of charge. Providers must in future be able to demonstrate a minimum level of liquidity. They are also to be monitored by the European Banking Authority (EBA). Furthermore, crypto companies must also disclose data on energy consumption and environmental impact after the law comes into force.
Compromise on NFTs
However, the representatives of the EU Parliament and the EU countries did not agree on one topic for a long time: NFTs. While EU parliamentarians wanted NFTs to be included in the regulation, EU countries were against it. Ultimately, both parties reached a compromise: supervisors of NFTs should only be able to demand compliance with crypto regulations under certain conditions. If NFTs behaved like traditional securities, the EU’s MiFID financial market rules could apply. Within a year and a half, the EU Commission intends to examine whether separate regulations are necessary for NFTs.
Only a few assets should benefit from exception for NFTs
However, as CoinDesk reports, comments by the European Commission’s Peter Kerstens at Korea Blockchain Week 2022 indicated that this exemption is unlikely to provide much relief for NFTs. EU lawmakers “understand an NFT very narrowly,” according to Kerstens, implying that few assets are likely to actually benefit from this exemption. “If a token is issued as a collection or as a series – although the issuer may refer to it as an NFT and although each individual token in that series may be unique – it is not considered an NFT, so the requirements apply,” echoes CoinDesk Kerstens , who points out that publishers of NFT collections would have to publish a “white paper” for each NFT in the future, which is comparable to a securities prospectus for shares – which in his opinion would be “stupid”. According to Kerstens, publishers should also not tempt people to buy, for example with absurd promises about the future value of the NFTs.
Editorial office finanzen.net
Image sources: archy13 / Shutterstock.com