[ad_1]
Dutch Finance Minister Pete Hoekstra has been officially informed of the introduction of a cryptography licensing system, Dutch media Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) reported on 18 January.
Hoekstra reportedly sought cryptocurrency advice from the Dutch Financial Market Authority and the local central bank De Nederlandsche Bank early last year.
The minister announced that he had started working in accordance with the notice immediately after receiving it. According to the article, the decrease in crypto-speculative mania has made investor protection actions less urgent. Because of this lesser urgency, the focus is supposed to be on the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism through cryptography.
The Financial Intelligence Service of the Netherlands has noted that the number of unusual transactions with cryptocurrencies has risen from an average of 300 to 5,000 a year on average, reports the NOS.
The proposed licensing system would require cryptographic centers and portfolio providers to monitor their customers' transactions and report suspicious activity to the authorities. The exchanges will also have to collect and store information about their customers in order to be able to transmit them to the authorities in the event of an investigation.
The central bank of the Netherlands reportedly announced that companies would be tested before obtaining the license, for example to check whether they were able to collect the required user data.
Richard Kohl, a board member of the Bitcoin Nederland Foundation, was quoted as saying that the measure was "dramatic for young innovative companies", calling the new regulation a big step backwards in the local culture of innovation. .
The article says he expects the new regulations to impose on companies a lot of paperwork and huge expenses in order to stay in compliance. All this, according to Kohl, will lead to major competitive disadvantages compared to large established parties such as banks.
Kohl was also quoted as saying that too little research had been done on the real dangers of crypto-currencies and that he thought the measures taken were too extreme. He also expressed his concerns about the other possible consequences of the need to store user data:
"Banks and financial institutions must already track information about customers and transactions. […] you may be wondering how much our personal information is protected and used, for example, how the Chinese government wants to be able to track all the transactions of all citizens. "
As reported Cointelegraph in December of last year, cryptocurrency service providers will soon have to obtain a license from the central bank of the Netherlands.
In August 2018, a Dutch central bank official announced that, even if cryptocurrencies are not "real money", the bank does not intend to ban them.
[ad_2]
Source link
