As we all know, the upcoming G20 Summit has listed cryptocurrencies as its main topic agenda. The summit is set to take place in Osaka, Japan towards the end of June this year. In preparation of the summit, Japan has drawn a manual for the G20 Leaders and international financial chiefs. The country will also host the G20 ministerial meetings and therefore has the rights to set up a huge part of the agenda for the talks.
The G20 Summit
The summit comprises of Japan and other 19 member countries, the European Union, guest countries and several international organisation. The summit follows the recent member’s joint declaration that promised to regulate crypto assets for AML and CTF purposes.
The G20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the U.K., the U.S., and the European Union.
For quite a while now, Tokyo has been looking to bring crypto regulations to the table and therefore the Japan ministers is using this opportunity to push global leaders to agree on new crypto regulations. The countries main push towards crypto regulation is the fact that some G20 countries have tight regulations set on digital assets whereas others have no regulations set at all.
With this manual, the Japanese government hopes to put in place three major implementations
- Systems that protect users’ assets
- International security protocols
- Systems that provide users with information (especially in case of a hack).
Also dubbed as a handbook, the manual will outline the two major hacks experienced last year by Japanese exchanges; -the Coincheck hack that took place in January last year and the Zaif hack which took place just seven months after the Coincheck hack. Due to these hacks, Japan has imposed the country’s exchanges with a strict set of regulations. All exchanges are required to seek operating permits from the regulatory Financial Services Agency. The FSA has the power to suspend trades, and even conduct extensive on-site audits.
The self-regulating Japanese Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA) also set policies on exchanges.
