Global Crypto Regulation Needs Coordination, Not Duplication, Legal Experts Say

Crypto regulatory frameworks need to coordinated internationally, but tweaked to meet local differences, legal experts said at a panel at Consensus 2023 on Friday.

"It's not good to put crypto all in the same basket and look at it in a vacuum," said Marianne Bechara, senior counsel at the International Monetary Fund.

Regulators worldwide have been working for several years to determine how best to coordinate international crypto regulation. Earlier this month, the European Parliament approved the European Union’s crypto-assets framework, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which some observers have said could form a template for other jurisdictions. Even so, each country or region has issues that are area specific, the panelists said.

"There's some level of coordination, but there should still be some level of space for individual jurisdictions to address their own context," said Brian Yeoh, director of fintech at Abu Dhabi Global Markets. "I think international securities regulation and international regulation as a whole recognizes that there's a need for some level of convergence."

"So I think the specific concerns that the U.S. has on how you deal with the definitions of the security may not necessarily apply in other jurisdictions," he said. "There is no commonly accepted definition of a security worldwide."

Read full coverage of Consensus 2023 here.