EU civil war: Bitcoin will NOT be regulated fume financial chiefs
THE European Union will not regulate Bitcoin, bloc chiefs have claimed amid clashes over how to deal with the cryptocurrency.
By DARIUS MCQUAID
Express.co.uk
Wed, Dec 27, 2017
Infighting has broken out as the EU struggles to put on a united front in the wake of the bitcoin bubble.
In a recent interview with broadcast Bloomberg Surveillance, Pierre Moscovici, EU’s financial commissioner, dismissed bitcoin as an alternative currency.
He said: “No we are not having those conversations right now.
“At this stage, we do not consider bitcoin as an alternative currency, not like the euro. We see that there is quite a lot of speculation about that.
“Sometimes speculation is overactive or exuberant — We look at that and analysed the phenomenon, but we don’t think we have to react to bitcoin as a political and technical body.”
But others have called for the bloc to clampdown on bitcoin amid concerns over cryptocurrencies links to terrorist financing, money laundering and tax evasion.
And European legislators added digital currencies to the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which considers bitcoin to be a “monetary instrument.”
The EU is also considering a database of bitcoin owners in Europe to crack down of the use of bitcoin funding illegal activities, which will fall under the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive.
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