Libra may have added impetus for regulators to get on top of the
regulatory status of stablecoins and other forms of cryptoassets
but are we any closer to getting legal certainty? December saw the
publication of two further papers seeking to bring greater clarity
and January has seen the FCA take responsibility for AML
compliance. Will 2020 be the year when firms and investors will at
last have greater certainty of the regulatory status of their
products?
The past decade saw an explosion in digital currencies, digital
tokens and distributed ledger technology but like much innovation,
the legal and regulatory status of these new assets is often murky.
Our FinTech practice is now regularly asked to advise on the
regulatory status of business models involving the use of
cryptoassets. As the decade drew to a close, two papers were
published which may help to clarify the legal and regulatory
framework of cryptoassets.
