In Switzerland, Basel at an annual general meeting of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the economic adviser and research head Hyun Song Shin declared that cryptocurrencies should be considered as an instrument, just like stocks and bonds.
“If people pay to hold the tokens for financial gain, then arguably they should be treated as a security and come under the same rigorous documentation requirements and regulation as other securities offered to investors for a return.”
The statement has highlighted that after months of debating there is still no global consensus regarding the definition of cryptocurrencies by traditional financial authorities.
Just a week ago the same banking watchdog, BIS, has published a report where it criticized cryptocurrencies for being inefficient and fundamentally unable to facilitate trust.
The new stance of BIS also contradicts that of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which earlier this month has declared that ethereum and bitcoin do not fit in the criteria to be considered as securities, however, ICO’s are since they are similar to stock sales.
Bank of England later stated that it agrees with SEC and deems crypto exchanges share same standards with exchanges trade securities. The global confusion seems to continue further as Japanese regulator say that they consider cryptocurrencies to be a form of payment.
By Nadya Astam