Sebastián Negri, president of the CNV: “I do not see the possibility of a crypto law in Argentina in the short term”

This Thursday took place the Modular business & crypto summit at Usina del Arte which had the organization of gravel and more of 1,500 attendees in which blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, the latest advances in Web3, and trends in the ecosystem were discussed. But without a doubt one of the central points was the panel in which they spoke about regulation and Ambit participated in the press conference after the event.

Sebastian Negripresident of the CNV, confirmed that he does not see “the possibility that there will be a specific crypto law in Argentina in the short term”. It should be noted that, in terms of legislation, there is a project to reform the law for the prevention and prosecution of money laundering and terrorist financing. The Chamber of Deputies of Argentina has already given him half a sanction.

In this regard, Negri clarified: “The project as it is in Congress It is not only records but also involves the possibility of regulating other issues, which have investor protection as their axis, but which also implies working on custody, market integrity, governance under international standards which are about preventing laundering.”

However, he clarified that “This bill does not advance on an issue, which we are debating, which is the definition of whether cryptocurrencies are a security or not negotiable”. “Argentine regulation focuses on intermediaries, which are service providers. It is an instance that will take time to develop and that is enough for now,” he specified.

UIF: regulation against money laundering

He member of the FIU Advisory Council, Elio Grilloassured that “We do not believe that the virtual assets sector is more risky compared to other sectors”, but, “we consider that it has specificities that have to be addressed”. And in reference to the crypto industry, he said, “they must be included in our lists as obligated subjects to respond”.

“We are waiting for the sanction of the new law to include all virtual asset brokers under the optics, so we are working together with the CNV to carry out the registration”He said about the reform of the law for the prevention and prosecution of money laundering that still needs to be approved by the Senate.

As for the “prejudice” towards the crypto ecosystem, said that “We believe that it has to do with the fact that it is a new technology that until 2014 no regulator had ruled on in this regard and here since 2017 it is advancing by leaps and bounds”. “We are well on our way to understanding and working with the industry in a way that satisfies both international and FIU recommendations on money laundering financial reporting,” she closed.

Uruguay and its crypto regulation

In Uruguay, your Central Bank is the one that has the authority to regulate cryptocurrencies. At the end of December 2021, the BCU issued a first document to begin to define these assets. so explained Patricia Tudiscomayor of Financial Regulation of the Central Bank of UruguayHow was the process:

“With the focus on stability, solvency, and development of the financial market and the payment system, we began to think about how this new thing that appeared had an impact on the bank’s protection purposes. A working group was created to address this new issue and analyze whether or not this was a matter for the central bank“, said.

And he expanded: “Indeed, we saw that these assets had particular characteristics that could affect the financial system and the payment system. We work on them in a conceptual framework. we realized that there were some particular assets with certain uses that had characteristics of financial instruments and we decided that it was within the purview of the central bank.”

Within the superintendency they made an adjustment so that the law incorporates virtual asset service providers with a double focus: laundering control and consumer protection. “We have a stock market law that could be book-entry or physical values. Within the book-entry value it did not enable a decentralized registry value and we are in the process of modifying it,” he explained.

As for the stablecoinswhich are stable assets backed 100% with fiat currency, Tudisco said, “for us, according to the financial definition, it has the characteristic of electronic money and with the definition that existed, it was not necessary to make any incorporation.”