Crypto Regulation Archives

From payment service providers to professional football clubs: New EU regulations to combat money laundering adopted

by Annabelle Rau on Apr 30, 2024
Posted In Banking Supervision, Crypto Regulation, Financial Services, Money laundering, Payment Services

On April 24, 2024, the European Parliament adopted a new anti-money laundering legislative package to strengthen the EU’s tools to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

The package includes

• the sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (“AMLD6”) as well as
• the EU Regulation on a Single Rulebook and
• a new central supervisory authority.

Extended access to beneficial ownership data

A key aspect of the new legislation is to ensure that persons with a legitimate interest – including journalists, civil society organizations, supervisory authorities and other relevant stakeholders – have direct and unhindered access to beneficial ownership [...]

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Update for crypto asset service providers: Draft bill to transfer German crypto regulation to the EU MiCAR regime

by Annabelle Rau on Apr 24, 2024
Posted In Crypto Regulation, Financial Services

On April 5, 2024, the German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) published a draft bill for two regulations intended to facilitate the transition of national crypto regulation into the EU MiCAR regime.
These proposed regulations specify the simplified authorization procedure and create the possibility of submitting applications before the MiCAR regulations become fully applicable.

In brief: Simplified authorization procedure for already regulated institutions

At the end of 2023, the German legislator presented the draft Financial Market Digitization Act (“FinmadiG“), which, among other things, provides for a separate Crypto Markets Supervision Act (“KMAG“) (we [...]

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Bitcoin Halving Is Just Around the Corner

by Frederic Peine on Apr 18, 2024
Posted In Crypto Regulation

After the approval of cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States, another fundamental event for the crypto industry is on the horizon: the expected bitcoin halving in mid-April 2024.

The approval of so-called bitcoin spot ETFs by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in early January 2024 led to significant cash inflows into the crypto market, specifically targeting the market for bitcoin spot ETFs. Between March 4 and March 13, 2024, approximately US$3.8 billion was invested into the newly approved bitcoin ETFs, resulting in bitcoin reaching a new record high of around US$ 73,750.

Now, the industry eagerly [...]

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Are You Ready for MiCAR? – Webinar on the Introduction to the new EU Crypto Regulation

by Renate Prinz and Annabelle Rau on Feb 9, 2024
Posted In Crypto Regulation, MiCAR

We had the pleasure to host our webinar on the new regulation of crypto-assets in the EU (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR)), with a focus on the scope of MiCAR, licensing requirements and procedures, and obligations for crypto-asset service providers in the EU. Our experts, specializing in Financial Regulatory Law with a focus on the current crypto regulation, engaged in discussions regarding the upcoming changes due to MiCAR in 2024.

The seminar was targeted at all those who were (or aspired to be) involved in the crypto scene or provided services in this domain, seeking insights into compliance with the [...]

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FinmadiG and KMAG – Implementation of European crypto-financial market regulation in Germany

by Annabelle Rau on Jan 29, 2024
Posted In Crypto Regulation, Financial Services

The German legislator has responded to the harmonization of European financial market regulations: In October 2023, the Federal Ministry of Finance published the draft bill for the Act on the Digitization of the Financial Market (Finanzmarktdigitalisierungsgesetz – “FinmadiG“), followed by the publication of the government draft of the FinmadiG just one month later.

MiCAR, DORA and money transfers – what does the FinmadiG implement?

The FinmadiG is intended to implement the following EU regulations on digital financial market regulation:

Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (“MiCAR”): The first EU-wide uniform set of rules for markets in crypto assets (we provided information here, for [...]

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SEC approval for crypto ETF

by Frederic Peine on Jan 11, 2024
Posted In Crypto Regulation

Yesterday, on January 10, 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) made the long-awaited decision by the crypto scene to allow the listing and distribution of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that track the price of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, so-called Bitcoin spot ETFs. Specifically, 11 of these Bitcoin spot ETFs were approved by SEC, including those from major market players such as BlackRock, Ark Investments and Fidelity. The approval decision was preceded by a false report shortly before the SEC decision, which once again led to considerable market distortions. The approval took a year-long coordination process between the parties involved and [...]

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Stability through regulation

by Renate Prinz on May 15, 2023
Posted In Banking Law, Crypto Regulation, MiCAR

The financial industry is once again facing uncertainty and turbulence, caused in particular by the demise of some banks and problems in the crypto scene. In view of the current regulatory density, the question arises whether this is sufficient to ensure the stability of the financial industry and whether it can actually help to create market security and trust. Renate Prinz classifies the current developments in the Börsen-Zeitung.

Click here to read the full article in [...]

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Understanding the regulatory landscape for crypto-assets in Germany and the EU

by Renate Prinz on Nov 11, 2022
Posted In Crypto Regulation

Currently, you can read summaries and briefings about the new crypto asset market regulation (“MiCAR”) everywhere. Certainly MiCAR has the potential to give the EU crypto market a huge boost. From what we have seen so far, regulation for new business models, especially in the fintech market, is not as bad as everyone has assumed so far.

Renate Prinz puts the developments in FinExtra in perspective. Click here for the [...]

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McDermottTech 2022 – Recap

by Renate Prinz and Annabelle Rau on Oct 21, 2022
Posted In Crypto Regulation, Events

From crypto, NFTs and blockchain technologies, to ethics in artificial intelligence, outsourcing and cloud deals, to trends in IP protection and enforcement in the metaverse: Together, we discussed some of the latest global trends in the technology industry at this year’s McDermottTech.

Interested in the content of our panels? Click here for the videos of our panels. You can also download the PowerPoint presentation
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FinTech Market: Regulation of crypto assets in Germany and the EU

by Annabelle Rau and Renate Prinz on Sep 21, 2022
Posted In Crypto Regulation

In this webinar, Renate Prinz and Annabelle Rau provide an overview of the current regulatory land-scape for crypto assets and crypto service providers in Germany, also taking a look at the European level, where uniform legislation for the regulation of crypto-assets is coming soon. The following fur-ther topics will be covered:

Regulatory classification of crypto-assets in Germany.
Licensing requirements in connection with crypto-assets and crypto-services
Overview of the regulatory requirements for entities regulated in Germany
Draft European crypto regulation, in particular the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (“MiCAR”).
Passporting of licenses within the EU

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