The Uruguayan Parliament has been presented with a new cryptocurrency bill project by the executive branch. By giving the Central Bank of Uruguay authority over cryptocurrency assets, amending its organic charter, and establishing the Superintendence of Financial Services as the body to regulate virtual asset service providers, the bill aims to clarify how crypto assets will be regulated in the nation.
Uruguayan Executive Power Proposes Crypto Bill
To clarify how cryptocurrency asset-related activities will be regulated, Uruguay’s executive branch has submitted a bill project to the nation’s legislature. If passed, this will be the nation’s first legislation to address the legal limbo in which cryptocurrency exchanges and companies that provide services for virtual assets operate.
The proposed legislation modifies the Central Bank of Uruguay’s organic charter and establishes the Superintendence of Financial Services, a unit within the central bank, as the primary regulator of the operations of virtual asset service providers.In this sense, the document establishes that custody providers, companies that facilitate the purchase and exchange of virtual assets, and third parties that lend financial services related to the offer or sale of a virtual asset will be considered part of this class.
A new class of organization called “virtual asset issuer” is introduced by the bill, and it is defined as a platform that issues any kind of virtual asset that falls under the regulatory purview or requests admission of regulated virtual assets on a virtual asset trading platform.
Central Bank of Uruguay Will Be Main Crypto Watchdog
Like other law projects in the area that introduce institutions as the main crypto watchdogs, the proposed bill puts all supervision related to these tasks in the hands of the country’s central bank. The document declares:
With the proposed modifications, both the previously regulated subjects and the newly incorporated entities that operate with virtual assets will be subject to the supervision and control powers of the Central Bank of Uruguay.
Virtual asset securities, which are referred to as the digital counterparts of the already well-known financial securities, are also mentioned in the text.
The country has made prior attempts to legalize cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. This was the aim of a cryptocurrency bill project that Senator Juan Sartori put forth last year. Additionally, the Central Bank of Uruguay summoned Binance in August for providing financial products based on cryptocurrencies that are geared toward saving money.
