Belgian foreign minister calls for crypto ban
An EU member of parliament has lately tweeted that he believes an EU-wide ban needs to be imposed on crypto.
In a tweet from March 17, Johan Van Overtveldt, a former finance minister of Belgium and present member of the European Parliament, urged for a complete ban on cryptocurrencies amid the latest turmoil within the banking sector.
“One other lesson to be discovered from the present banking commotion. Implement a strict ban on cryptocurrencies,” Van Overtveldt tweeted, including that crypto supplies “no financial or social worth.”
“If a authorities bans medicine, it also needs to ban crypto,” he speculated, alluding to new fears stemming from the misery to Silvergate and Silicon Valley Financial institution, which has since unfold to European markets, sending shares of banks like Credit score Suisse plunging to document lows.
The feedback come after a particular Basel Committee on banking has advisable that banks develop protocols for holding and sustaining each Bitcoin and stablecoins by 2025.
Van Overtveldt, who serves because the financial spokesperson for a bunch of 64 EU lawmakers, made the remarks because the European Parliament is gearing as much as vote on important crypto licensing rules for the bloc.
Johan Van Overtveldt’s anti-crypto stance
Since 2013, he has been a member of the New Flemish Alliance social gathering and was elected to the European Parliament in 2014. He turned the Minister of Finance within the Michel Authorities in 2014 and, following the 2019 elections, returned to the European Parliament, the place he at the moment chairs the Committee on Budgets and serves as rapporteur on the Multi-annual Monetary Framework.
Subsequent month, the EU parliament’s lawmakers are scheduled to fulfill and focus on crypto regulation. The regulation is anticipated to supply a construction for pockets suppliers and exchanges that adhere to governance and shopper safety requirements.
Based on Van Overtveldt, who’s spearheading parliament’s efforts to go a legislation permitting for the buying and selling of securities on distributed ledger know-how, the know-how does have “huge potential” to boost productiveness however warns that lots of the speculative initiatives that enter finance via crypto, tends to harm customers.
Basel committee
The upcoming banking laws within the European Union features a vary of stringent capital rules for banks that possess cryptocurrencies.
Based on a report by Reuters on February twentieth, the Basel Committee, comprised of banking regulators from important monetary hubs globally, has set a deadline of January 2025 for implementing capital requirements for banks that maintain cryptocurrencies corresponding to Bitcoin and stablecoins:
“In the meanwhile, banks have very low crypto-asset exposures and solely a restricted involvement in offering crypto-asset-related companies. Banks have expressed curiosity in buying and selling crypto-assets on behalf of their purchasers and to supply crypto-assets-related companies. From a world perspective, it might additionally enable the EU to totally align itself with the implementation deadline agreed on at Basel degree.”
