Netherlands: Minister of Finance calls for regulations for ICO

Last Thursday, Wopke Hoekstra, current Dutch finance minister, formally sent a letter to the Parliament of that country in which he advocated attention and international focus to regulate cryptocurrencies.

One of its main objectives would be to analyze and strengthen consumer protection, public documents suggest. For starters, Hoekstra wants to discuss with credit card companies the possibility of establishing stronger protections for people who buy cryptocurrencies through such means, for example.

Several of the proposals presented by Hoekstra involve local exchange platforms and cryptocurrency services being registered with the local government and meeting the requirements by the end of 2019. In the letter, the minister also proposed new laws to help protect the participants of the initial offer of coins or ICO.

It is being investigated whether ICO investors can protect themselves as well as investors with a normal initial public offering or bond issue. The current framework is not enough for this.

The proposals are remarkable, given that regulators in the country have pointed out in particular issues related to technology - ICO in particular - in the past.

Previously, the Netherlands Financial Markets Authority (AFM), which is the Dutch equivalent of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. UU., Issued a statement last November qualifying the ICO market as a "dangerous cocktail." With respect to these statements, Hoekstra proposed measures that would prohibit the advertising of risky financial products for ordinary consumers.

In addition, the minister promised to work with other countries of the European Union and promote cooperative research to explore the "cross-border nature of the market."

The current supervision framework and the instruments are not adapted to the cryptocurrency, "he wrote in the letter.

In this way, Hoekstra indicated that within the Netherlands, more work is needed to update the country's laws to legislate cryptocurrencies.