May 16 (Reuters) - European Union states on Tuesday gave the final go-ahead to the world's first comprehensive set of rules to regulate crypto assets, ratcheting up pressure on countries like Britain and the United States to catch up.
A meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels approved rules that were discussed with the European Parliamentwhich gave its go-ahead in April.
The rules are expected to be implemented from 2024.
Crypto regulation has become more urgent for regulators after the collapse of FTX crypto exchange.
"Recent events have confirmed the urgent need to impose rules that will better protect Europeans who have invested in these assets and prevent the misuse of the crypto industry for the purposes of money laundering and terrorist financing," said Elisabeth Svantesson, Minister of Finance. Swedish finance. , who holds the presidency of the EU.
The rules require companies that want to issue, trade, and safeguard crypto assets, tokenized assets, and stablecoins in the 27-country bloc to obtain a license.
Ministers took steps to combat tax evasion and the use of crypto asset transfers for money laundering by making it easier to trace transactions.
They agreed to the requirement that from January 2026 service providers obtain the name of senders and recipients of crypto assets, regardless of the amount being transferred.
There was also agreement on the modification of the rules on how member countries cooperate with each other on tax matters to cover crypto-asset transactions, and on the exchange of information on advance tax rulings for the richest people.
Crypto companies say they want regulatory certainty, pushing countries to copy EU rules and regulators to come up with global rules for cross-border activity.
Britain has outlined a phased approach, starting with stablecoins and later expanding to unbacked crypto assets, but there is no firm timetable.
The United States has focused on using existing securities standards for enforcement in the sector as it decides whether to introduce new custom standards and who would enforce them.
Hester Peirce, one of the commissioners of the US derivatives regulator CFTC, said last week that various federal and state authorities are trying to figure out what supervisory role they could play in the crypto sector.
"We're wandering in the desert a bit," Peirce said at a conference.
Reporting by Huw Jones, Editing by Louise Heavens
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
