European Union Setting Up to be the Global Leader in Blockchain Adoption

By Kapil Gauhar

Across the European Union, leaders are pushing to get clarity on regulations. As a result, the cryptocurrency space will get the attention it deserves before the end of this year.

If this happens, the US could be left behind.

France Leading Blockchain Charge

In France, President Emmanuel Macron seeks increased attention given to the technologies like blockchain for improving the agriculture industry and tracing food supply chains.

This past weekend, the president argued at the 56th International Agricultural Fair in Paris,

“There is a desperate need to authenticate and track agricultural products in light of growing concerns over food sources. Let’s do this in Europe, [be at the] vanguard of agricultural data by developing tools that will track every product from raw material production to packaging and processing.”

If Macron could gather support from other members of the European Union, then he would like to see a new EU task force established not just to enforce the agricultural supply standards but to fight food fraud.

Germany Leading Blockchain Charge Across Europe

Germany declared that it recently opened a blockchain consultation process, which has now gone a step further. The country’s chief executive body, Cabinet of German, will introduce a blockchain strategy by the middle of 2019. Since several countries across the EU are operating FinTech sandboxes, the emphasis is on having blockchain regulations in place.

In January this year, the operators of the 2nd largest stock exchange in Germany, Boerse Stuttgart Group, launched a new cryptocurrency trading application called, Bison.

Bison allows charge-free trading on BTC, ETH, LTC and XRP, and propelled the crypto ecosystem in Germany to a completely new level.

FATF Member Countries’ Role

About a week ago, the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) finished working on its prerequisites for the management, observation and control of financial institutions which provide cryptocurrency solutions in the FATF’s member countries. The inter-governmental group mentioned that all the countries, over which it has authority, have to make concerted efforts to oversee as well as manage crypto firms the way they would do with any other financial institution.

The FATF has 38 member countries, including Austria, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, China, Canada, Denmark, The European Commission, France, Finland, Greece, Germany, The Gulf Cooperation Council – including Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – Hong Kong, Italy, Israel, Ireland, India, Iceland, South Korea, the Kingdom of the Netherlands – including Aruba, Netherlands, Curacao and Sint Maarten – Luxembourg, Mexico, Malaysia, Norway, New Zealand, Portugal,, the Russian Federation, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, Singapore, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

With that said, it’s evident that there’s a definite change in the momentum coming to cryptocurrency regulations. Where most nations were shuffling their feet on the subject before, more jurisdictions are beginning to take digital assets more seriously.

One thing is sure, 2019 is going to be a vital year for cryptocurrency and will most likely set the stage on how cryptocurrencies are viewed and used from this point forward.