In its bid to become Europe’s hub for cryptocurrency, France is developing regulations to govern ICO issuance. The move is aimed at luring new cryptocurrency-based operators to the country but at the same time protecting investors from scammers.
The move by France to introduce regulations in the industry may not fare well with all the industry’s operators, but at least the nation is friendlier to digital currency unlike China, South Korea and India.
Anti-ICO States
The three Asian countries are among the nations that have issued a complete ban on the initial coin offerings (ICOs) and digital assets altogether. The countries have cited terrorism financing, money laundering activities and digital theft through hacking as the reasons for the total ban.
In South Korea particularly, lobby groups have pressured the government to lift the ban on ICOs and create regulations to govern the sector instead. The government is yet to issue its stance on ICOs, however. China like India has not relented on its efforts to frustrate cryptos and ICOs operating in the country. The nations have announced that their bans on ICOs and cryptos still hold.
French upcoming regulations
The new regulations by the French authorities will seek to identify the individuals behind ICOs. This means that issuers seeking to operate incognito will not have a way of doing so in France. The policy will make it easier to track down the operators in case things go sour with the project.
Under the new regulations, operators will have to elaborate their contingency plans. This is a guarantee to investors that they will be compensated in case the project fails to materialize as planned. Also, all ICOs issuers will have to adhere to Know Your Customer and Anti Money Laundering regulations.
French’s proposed tax regime for crypto gains
Recently, French lawmakers announced that they were going to back the amendments on the 2019 budget bill that sought to slash down taxes on cryptocurrency gains to 30%. When the bill is approved by the parliament, crypto gains taxation will be in line with other capital gains. This is proof that besides protecting its citizens from losing their investments to fraudsters, France intends to increase its tax revenue from crypto-related dealings.
