Curbing The Crypto Money Laundering: Japan to Call for G20 Action
Japan is planning to urge the G20 to increase the efforts to address the potential money laundering issue regarding the crypto currencies during the upcoming G20 summit in Buenos Aires on March 19-20, as per a reuters quoting a “government official with direct knowledge of the matter.”
"The main focus of discussion will be anti-money laundering steps instead of formulating regulations for cryptocurrency trading. The general feeling among the G20 members is that applying too stringent regulations won't be good," an official was quoted as saying.
Japan, an early adopter of cryptocurrency, is worried that many countries have somewhat less stringent regulations when it comes to preventing money laundering via digital tokens.
Japan will not be the only one to raise its concerns about the abuse of crypto currencies during the said G20 summit. On Feb. 9, senior officials from Germany and France also called for the G20 group to formulate combined strategy regarding on cryptocurrencies. A week earlier, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also indicated that he would raise the subject of cryptocurrency regulation during an upcoming G20 summit.
Cryptocurrencies and The Regulatory Efforts
Decentralization is a hallmark of all cryptocurrencies which allows everyone to be their own bank. But the absence of official regulations and accountability is considered a big threat by many.
At the same time, cryptocurrency and the technology behind it offers to usher a lot of promising arenas. So it would not be easy to find a middle ground between allowing the innovation and over-regulation.
Developing a proper regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies is an uphill task. Its is not easy to do for one country let alone for the powerful entity like G20 because every country tends to approach these matters differently. However all the G20 members states have consensus on the fact that having too strict regulations for crypto trading would have more adverse results than benefits. So for now a mellow positive regulatory approach is being seeked to avert the potential money laundering threats of crypto trading.
Whether or not we see any major development soon, remains to be seen. Japan was one the few countries to effectively legalize cryptocurrencies. But a plethora of money laundering incidents(669 suspected money laundering cases have been reported in 2017 by exchanges) has forced Japan to raise its voice/concerns. So with Japan backing the positive regulatory measures the things will get rather interesting in coming months...
I think enforcing and enabling positive regulatory measures is a definite good thing and Japan definitely has the right approach. Outright banning is a bad idea, as it hinders innovation, but finding the sweet spot of how to allow for a space of crypto while also ensuring people aren't being robbed blind by security breaches or money laundering is the right way to go . Hopefully we start to see more security measures adopted in prevents the pitfalls of crypto and blockchain technology in general.
Yeah, I really hope so...
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