G20 Summit Has No Progress For Crypto Regulation But Money Laundering A Main Focus

“Cryptocurrencies can bring significant advantages to the traditional economy and do not pose a global risk to financial stability.”

This was the general sentiment when the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the world’s largest economies spoke about cryptocurrency in the G20 conference.

The past weekend, July 21-22, the 3rd Meeting of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The 1st Meeting that touched on the cryptocurrency regulations was held earlier in March this year where participants did not come to a definitive decision.

The result of the discussion during the recent meeting was reflected in a brief conclusion in Communiqué, that is essentially identical to the one of March. G20 referred to the FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering) asking to provide explanations by October 2018 regarding the ways FATF anti-money laundering standards should be applicable to crypto-assets.

Coming into the summit, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the G20s regulatory watchdog, concluded that cryptocurrencies do not pose a substantial risk to the global economy, but were deserving of further observation.

What this narrative essentially means is that even though crypto markets are robust, they are not widely integrated into the traditional financial system, so it’s unlikely that a crypto crash would impact the broader financial system.

Tightening Against Money Laundering

The FSB’s guidelines already include measures for monitoring money laundering and terrorist fundraising, and the G20 is relying on their expertise as well as the directions from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to guide their initiatives. The G20 meets again in October, and they’ve requested the FATF to clarify how their standards apply to digital assets.

Money laundering and terrorist fundraising became a concrete concern this month when a U.S. Federal Indictment charged 12 Russian agents with money laundering using Bitcoin to finance their hack on governmental institutions.

Even though the meeting was open to the press, many of the issues discussed were left outside the public domain. On the topic of cryptocurrency, in particular, was spoken little, although we managed to learn about some of the topics that were discussed behind the closed doors of the G20.