PARIS (Reuters) – The head of France’s central bank said on Tuesday that countries that are slow to regulate crypto assets could create offsetting risks that players operating around the world could exploit.
The European Union has sought to be a global standard-setter, proposing in July that companies obtain a license and provide guarantees for customers to issue and sell digital tokens in the 27-nation bloc.
But crypto assets, such as cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, are still largely unregulated globally.
French Central Bank Governor Francois Villeroy de Gallo said he hoped the EU regulations would be formally adopted by March next year, adding that other unnamed “key jurisdictions” were less progressive.
โWe must be very careful to avoid adopting disparate or contradictory systems, or regulating too late,โ Villeroy said at a conference on digital finance in Paris.
โDoing so would be to create an asymmetric playing field, risk arbitrage and cherry-pick,โ he said, adding that โunduly complexโ regulations could fall short of protecting customers and preventing money laundering.
The European Union has continued to push ahead with new crypto asset regulations, while the United States is still in the process of identifying loopholes in its rules.
