The first crypto legislation officially signed in the European Parliament

The very first law on cryptocurrency transactions was signed in the European Parliament today. MEP Assita Kanko was one of the two chief negotiators and took part in the official ceremony in the presence of Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, and Peter Kullgren, a minister of the Swedish government, which currently holds the EU presidency. The signing of the legal text is the final stage of the legislative process. The new crypto rules will come into force within 18 months.

The crypto world has hardly been regulated until now, and criminals have taken advantage of this by operating anonymously. Those days are over. Payments with crypto assets will soon be traceable, in line with the rules for traditional payments.

Personal data also required for small transactions

Buyers and sellers of crypto assets will thus soon have to exchange personal data, even for small amounts. The threshold of EUR 1,000, such as for bank Transfers The money flows from Flanders to Brussels and Wallonia are called transfers. The transfers from the federal budget, the Financing Law and social security amount to between 6 and 7 billion euros per year, and 11 billion euros if debt repayments are included. The size of the transfers is always contested by the French-speaking side or they are just referred to as normal solidarity contributions. A study by Vives (KU Leuven) revealed that the transfers did not serve solidarity, but had a paralysing effect on the growth of both the Walloon and Flemish economies. transfers , was not adopted. According to Assita Kanko, such a threshold is pointless: “Small amounts often hide major crimes. There are fundraising activities by terrorists of around EUR 100 and payments to child porn websites of EUR 10 or EUR 20.”

Proud of the result

Assita Kanko is proud of the result of two years of negotiations. “People were increasingly in favour of normal regulations for cryptocurrency transactions, including the sector itself. There were too many scandals and bankruptcies due to a lack of clear rules. They are here now. The negotiations were not easy, but through teamwork and commitment, we achieved a result that we can all be proud of,” Assita Kanko says.