Germany and France will jointly push for global Bitcoin regulation during the next summit of the G20 in Argentina amid mounting alarm that the world’s most popular cryptocurrency is being used by illegal groups, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday.
Germany’s finance minister Peter Altmaier said at the joint news conference in Paris that he supports a proposal by Le Maire to ask their counterparts in the G20 group of major economies to consider joint regulation of bitcoin.
He said: “We have a responsibility towards our citizens to explain and reduce the risks.”
Le Maire told reporters that authorities “will have a joint Franco-German analysis of the risks linked to bitcoin, regulation proposals and these will be submitted as a joint proposal to our G20 counterparts at the G20 summit in Argentina in March.”
The concerns over cryptocurrency mining, trading and usage to transfer money are already shared by several governments across the globe, so it makes sense to discuss the speculative risks of such digital assets and their impact on the financial system at international level.
The European Union has previously proposed to bring providers of financial services related to cryptocurrencies under the scope of its anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing regulations.
While global concerns have been voiced before in several regulatory announcements and warnings, Le Maire’s proposal could be the first step to bring those worries into global action, though doing so could raise many controversies.
(Photo: Crown Copyright/ Jay Allen)
