The cryptocurrency world was again taken “aback” by the rumours on what might the G20 ministers come up with about the future of Bitcoin and other altcoins.
The G20 ministers are essentially the government heads of the 20 most powerful world economies who met in Argentina for the G20 Summit this month. The major topic, or worry, was the emergence of a global trade war and of course, regulations. Within the topic of regulations, cryptocurrencies were also included.
While the discussions were mostly related to Trump and how the international security is going forward in the future, the ministers also called for greater regulation on cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. They highlighted the risks associated with altcoins and how they can affect the world.
According to Vanguard, the major conclusion of the meeting was that this “asset class” raised issues with consumer and investor protections, market integrity, money laundering and terrorist financing. All of these have actually been cited many times as the number one “worries” of different country heads and financial regulators.
According to Reuters, another key point outlined by the G20 ministers was that cryptocurrencies lack the major attributes of regular currencies. And even if they have all the necessary attributes of fiat money, then, they will also experience financial instabilities and fluctuations.
In addition, G20 ministers have set a very specific deadline for regulating the cryptocurrency world. According to last information, stricter regulations will be imposed in July, 2018. As the whole market is still very immature, ministers agreed that before any firm measures are taken, cryptos need to be studied first in order to examine what problems and issues they might impose on society.
What else was agreed on is that cryptocurrencies right now compose less than 1% of the global GDP, and just in comparison, the credit default swaps’ value was equal to the world’s GDP in 2008. So, this really helps everyone imagine the magnitude of CDS in 2008 and the “inability” of cryptocurrencies to be a “hot balloon” that can destroy the world’s economy as we know it.
While the technology behind cryptocurrencies may be very beneficial in the financial sector right now, and not only, the cryptocurrencies themselves are “watched upon” very closely as regulators worry about the collapse they may bring and all the risks associated with them so far.