European Parliament reaches consensus on cryptocurrency regulations

This Thursday, the European Parliament strengthened its position to impose a series of regulations on trade with cryptocurrencies, in order to help prevent criminal acts of money laundering or intentions of financial terrorism.

This situation refers to the voting process of the European Council held in December 2017, in which members voted to impose new regulations. The result was reflected with 574 votes in favor of the regulations and only 13 votes against.

The new measures seek to put a check on the exchange houses, platforms and electronic portfolios; so that suppliers, as well as operators must register and account for their services and customer verification to continue in the market legally.

According to the report, once the new regulations have been approved and published, they can be implemented after three days; after which 18 months must pass before being officially introduced as part of the national regulations of each member country.

Video game producer Atari will launch its own cryptocurrency
In the words of Krisjanis Karins, a member of the European Parliament (MEP):

Criminal behavior has not changed. Criminals hide behind anonymity to launder their illicit profits or finance terrorism. This legislation will help address the threats to our citizens and the financial sector by allowing greater access to information about the people behind criminal organizations, in addition to regulating virtual currencies and prepaid cards we will exercise greater control over criminal acts.

On the other hand, Judith Sargentini, another speaker of the Parliament comments that:

With this new legislation we introduce stricter measures, expanding the duty of financial institutions to carry out work to safeguard the safety of customers.

The consensus reached in December also imposes strict sanctions against acts of money laundering, as well as marks a milestone in the fight against criminal organizations at European level....