By Hedge Fund Insight staff
Today the Gibraltar Government has commenced the legal process for the regulation of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT). The bill will be going through Parliament with a view to the regulation being in place by January 2018.
This is the first time this has been done and will hopefully pave the way to allow the technology to grow in a regulated environment. There has been a lot of positivity around this as well as interest and the Government hopes that this move will allow other jurisdictions to follow and help protect those operating in this space.
Publication of this Bill and regulations is a key milestone in a journey that commenced in 2014 with the creation of the Cryptocurrency Working Group, a private sector initiative, driven by Paul Astengo of Gibraltar Finance, David Parody and Joey Garcia. Extensive work and research with leading industry experts then led to three public consultations on the subject and Gibraltar is now on track to provide regulatory certainty in this field in January 2018, as promised earlier this year.
The legislation has been designed to provide an efficient, safe and innovative regulatory framework for firms engaging in activities not otherwise subject to regulation and that use DLT for the transmission or storage of value belonging to others (DLT framework).
Samantha Barrass, CEO of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission commented: “Today’s publication places Gibraltar at the forefront of the regulation of Distributed Ledger Technology businesses and is a wonderful example of what can be achieved through greater collaboration among industry, government and the regulator. I truly believe that this regulatory framework demonstrates that regulators can keep up to date with technology without stifling innovation, protect consumers and create a well-regulated safe environment in which financial technology can flourish.”
The related documents are available at http://gibraltarlaws.gov.gi/ and on gibraltarfinance.gi.