A draft act regulating, among others, kryptowaluty

January 23 this year The Council of Ministers adopted a draft law on counteracting money law and financing terrorism. The companies that will be covered by the provisions of the act also include institutions related to the cryptocurrency market. These are the first formal actions aimed at regulating the circulation of virtual coins in Poland.

Regulations are only a matter of time

The media buzz and interest in the topic from the NBP, the PFSA and the Ministry of Finance clearly showed that regulating this dynamically growing segment is just a matter of time. In the content of the project we find a definition of cryptocurrencies, which defines them as a digital representation of values, which is not:

• international settlement unit,
• legal tender,
• financial instrument.

In the submitted act, there are no provisions explicitly referring to the operation of cryptocurrency exchanges. However, this does not mean that the law omits them. The new Anti-Money Laundering Act will cover institutions that provide services in the field of:

• Exchange between virtual currencies and means of payment,
• Exchange between virtual currencies,
• Intermediation in the exchange referred to in the above,
• Keeping accounts enabling the use of virtual currency units.

In the content of the draft, the legislator reserves the right and the obligated institutions to take action in the event of a "higher risk" situation, i.e. use of products, services or means of payment that favor anonymity or make it difficult to identify the parties. This can significantly affect the very idea of ​​introducing cryptocurrencies, which were to ensure their users freedom and discretion.

Cryptocurrencies in defense

The cryptocurrency market is developing so dynamically that authorities around the world have problems to keep up with. Most of them see the anonymity of transactions and users as a major threat, which may be conducive to breaking the law. There have been plans from China and South Korea that are considering a complete ban on trading in this type of instruments. Some banks also express their objection, where, for example, in Poland, BZ WBK, BPH, mBank and Pekao terminated contracts with some clients who traded in Bitcoin, citing concerns about the legality of such action.

The Bitcoin course itself is also in retaliation. The correction, which started in mid-December 2017, continues. BTC was discounted from about $ 19 to about $ 300 (the minimum was $ 11 ​​- the maximum range of decline is over 000%).

Bitcoin chart, D1 interval