- A financial regulator has clarified that Bitcoin and Ether are not securities in Belgium.
- There are several inquiries about how cryptocurrencies are governed.
- The FSMA started a consultation on the categorization of crypto assets in July.
Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) officials in Belgium have released a statement. According to a position posted on Thursday, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which have no issuer, are not securities.
Few regulatory organizations have succeeded in giving the developing asset class any definition, despite their best efforts. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple are now engaged in litigation in the US about a related issue.
According to the FSMA, there are several inquiries about how cryptocurrencies are governed. The group made the decision to clarify various issues, particularly those concerning whether or not cryptocurrencies are securities.
The authority has devised a “stepwise approach” to give a series of recommendations for classifying crypto assets. This is in an effort to help interested parties who have been receiving more and more inquiries regarding the financial regulations governing these assets.
The strategy is technology-neutral, according to the Belgian financial authority. “The qualification as security, financial instrument or investment instrument does not depend on the technology that is being used,” it elaborated, adding that it’s ready to update the plan in order to reflect regulatory changes in the future.
The imminent implementation of the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework may be one such occasion. At the end of June, member states and European institutions came to an agreement on this.
The FSMA started a consultation on the categorization of crypto assets in July. The watchdog started requiring providers of cryptocurrency exchange and wallet services to register earlier this year.
