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Authored by: Simon Deane and Chris Wong
Following up on the Executive Order in March 2022, US President Joe Biden’s White House has released a framework for the responsible development of digital assets. The framework, consisting of a series of reports from government departments and summarised in a Fact Sheet issued by the White House on 16 September 2022 (here), represents the culmination of the work by various government departments, regulators, industry, and other stakeholders in the US as they highlight the way forward in the digital asset industry. Of particular note:
As a global leader in finance and digital assets, it is likely that developments in the US will have ramifications across the world. In particular, regulatory requirements in the US as regards digital assets are likely to compete with regulatory standards from other economies, and may in the medium term create compliance issues for participants in the industry. Hong Kong too is about to introduce a modicum of regulation as regards virtual assets, with a regime for virtual asset service providers being introduced in March 2023. Although at the moment it only covers virtual assets exchanges, the regime is flexible enough to cover other virtual asset services in due course, and is indicative of the growing trend for governments to regulate an increasingly large and important part of the financial sector.
We would expect such regulatory developments to create compliance issues for some participants in the digital assets industry, and it will be increasingly important for players to take appropriate advice and action to make sure that they satisfy the requirements, as the regulatory spotlight moves at pace towards them.
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