Northwest Europe Improves Finance Sector with Cryptocurrency and Blockchain
TechnologyBit News Today2 min read
On 22 September 2022 Coinbase joined more than 30 crypto firms on the Dutch central bank register, one of a string of steps by which northwest European regulators moved crypto and blockchain into the supervised financial system between 2019 and 2022.
The table lists the main registration regimes, securities laws and central bank digital currency trials in the region, alongside the EU rules being finalised in 2022.
| Country | Initiative | Body | Year | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxembourg | Securities accounts on DLT | Parliament | 2019 | Law of 1 Mar 2019 added article 18bis, letting account keepers hold securities on distributed ledgers |
| Sweden | e-krona pilot | Sveriges Riksbank with Accenture | 2020 | Pilot on R3 Corda announced February 2020; Handelsbanken and TietoEVRY joined tests in June 2021 |
| Netherlands | Crypto provider registration | De Nederlandsche Bank | 2020 | Mandatory from 21 May 2020 over money-laundering risk; transition period ran to 21 Nov 2020 |
| Luxembourg | Bill 7637 | Parliament | 2021 | Passed January 2021, allowing dematerialised listed and unlisted securities to be issued on DLT |
| Ireland | VASP anti-money-laundering regime | Central Bank of Ireland | 2021 | Virtual asset service providers bound by AML rules and registration since 23 Apr 2021 |
| Germany | Fund Location Act | Bundestag | 2021 | Passed 22 Apr 2021, in force 1 Jul 2021; institutional Spezialfonds may hold up to 20% in crypto |
| Germany | Electronic Securities Act (eWpG) | Federal government | 2021 | Adopted June 2021; securities can be entered in an electronic register instead of a paper certificate |
| Belgium | VASP register | FSMA | 2022 | Royal Decree of 8 Feb 2022 in force 1 May 2022; existing firms had to apply by 1 Sep 2022 |
| United Kingdom | Crypto hub plan | HM Treasury | 2022 | Set out 4 Apr 2022: stablecoins as recognised payment, a Royal Mint NFT and a market infrastructure sandbox |
| Norway | CBDC sandbox | Norges Bank with Nahmii | 2022 | Nahmii chosen in May 2022; sandbox code released on GitHub under Apache 2.0 in September 2022 |
| EU | DLT Pilot Regime | European Parliament and Council | 2022 | Regulation (EU) 2022/858 on DLT market infrastructure published in the Official Journal on 2 Jun 2022 |
| EU | MiCA regulation | European Parliament and Council | 2022 | Provisional deal on crypto-asset market rules reached 30 Jun 2022 after talks opened 31 Mar 2022 |
| Ireland | First VASP registration | Central Bank of Ireland | 2022 | Gemini Digital Asset Limited registered on 19 Jul 2022, the first firm under the regime |
| Netherlands | Coinbase registration | De Nederlandsche Bank | 2022 | Registered 22 Sep 2022 for retail and institutional crypto services; Binance was fined €3.3m earlier that summer |
Sources: Kitco, De Nederlandsche Bank, Riksbank, Finextra, CMS, Hogan Lovells, Nasdaq, Decrypt, The Block, Cointelegraph, Gemini, Regulation Tomorrow.
