UK Financial Watchdog, FCA, Recruits Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Expert

On Feb. 6. 2020, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), an independent agency that regulates financial product offerings in the UK, showed interest in hiring a crypto and blockchain expert.

In detail, the FCA is looking to hire an intelligence Associate with cryptocurrency and blockchain proficiency to address digital assets under the European Union’s 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive. 

Also known as 5AMLD, the new law came into effect in January. 10, 2020 and signifies a key effort by the EU to tackle money laundering and terrorism financing using cryptocurrencies. 

The move by the FCA seeks to recruit a crypto expert for its core function team, which is primarily responsible for 5AMLD regulation of the crypto-asset sector.

The main duties of the hired crypto expert will include intelligence support for supervision and enforcement, along with processing applications for companies in the UK’s financial sector.  

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FCA’s Actions Point to Growing Trend of Governments Embracing Crypto

The FCA has been very active in crypto space as the regulator has approved operations of major crypto firms in the recent past. 

In July 2019, the FCA announced that it would not regulate the two top cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ether. 

Government crypto regulation policies are very diverse in each republic, but the trend seems to be that more governments are looking into crypto adoption. 

In Europe, for instance, most nations don’t have any regulations on both ICOs and exchanges, even though laws are slowly coming into place to help regulate the industry. In fact, EU nations have shown interest in national digital currencies to help battle unregulated crypto markets. 

Today’s effort by the FCA to investigate crypto more diligently and procure an expert on the industry indicates that government laws will change to adopt digital currencies and regulate them better. 

Governments Will Embrace Crypto, Binance CEO Says

Changpeng CZ Zhao, CEO of Binance, is of the opinion that this new year will see more governments warming up to both crypto and blockchain tech. 

CZ stated that there is an increasing number of governments globally that are keenly examining blockchain and crypto, as well as global regulatory laws for the industry. He added that such actions point to more prevalent crypto adoption in the near future.

Several governments are increasingly coming to terms with the idea of digital currencies, albeit from a stablecoin perspective, where regulated Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) would be introduced. 

For instance, the Bank of England recently revealed that it would explore potential use cases for CBDCs. The Project will be undertaken in collaboration with five other central banks and the Bank for International Settlements.

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