G20 countries now agreed to regulate cryptocurrencies based on FATF (Financial Action Task Force) standards. The decision was done at the Buenos Aires’ second summit session.
All the G20 nations signed a joint declaration according to The Saudi Gazette. This is a document that acknowledges the fact that there is a need to have a reform done because of the fact that the global economy is being digitized.
G20 decided that a regulatory approach will be taken based on FATF standards. In the official declaration we see:
We will regulate crypto-assets for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism in line with FATF standards and we will consider other responses as needed.
Besides this, the twenty countries are going to work together in order to monitor global economy digitization. Section 26 of the agreement states:
We will continue to work together to seek a consensus-based solution to address the impacts of the digitization of the economy on the international tax system with an update in 2019 and a final report in 2020.
According to Bitcoinist, the US took the first action against 2 ransomware facilitators from Iran. The US OFAC published 2 BTC wallet addresses and warned that all people transacting with these can be accused by secondary actions. Obviously, we do not know if such measures are going to be successful in order to prevent cryptocurrency transactions. Bitcoin was designed in order to decentralize the financial market.
Reports show that it was India that spearheaded this initiative as it presented a 9-point list in an attempt to convince the G20 countries to stop “fugitive economic offenders”. This did include mentions about crypto-assets.
Narenda Modi, Indian Prime Minister, presented the agenda and called for the FATF to establish international cooperation and assign priority. Such an action would guarantee that the member countries will work together and will respect financial intelligence units sharing information needed to track down potential offenders.
In case you were not aware, FATF is, according to its official website:
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 by the Ministers of its Member jurisdictions. The objectives of the FATF are to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
