The call for stronger monitoring of cryptocurrency was followed on Thursday by Davos Minister of Finance, high-ranking representatives of the money industry and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was primarily concerned that Internet currencies should not be used for illicit purposes. “In the US, the same rules apply to cryptocurrency providers and platforms as to banks,” he underlined. You have to know your customers and meet the obligations to stop money laundering. The goal must be that everywhere in the world according to the same rules with Bitcoin & Co will be handled. In part, this is already happening in the group of the 20 largest industrialized and emerging countries (G20).
The IMF, according to its boss Christine Lagarde, has a special obligation to keep an eye on the risks associated with cryptocurrencies. “We’ve already started watching this,” she said. At the same time, Lagarde pointed to the positive potential of the blockchain technology behind the cryptocurrencies.
The Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank, Paul Achleitner, also warned to differentiate between crypto currencies and the technologies behind them. He expressed the opinion that the Internet currency will turn out to be a “temporary phenomenon”. In the Blockchain technology one should invest against it. Blackrock boss Laurence Fink also called on the financial industry to harness these technologies.
