Update: March 20th, 2018

Yesterday, I reported the news of a note that the Finance Minister of the Financial Stability Board wrote to the G20 leaders just before they headed off to their two-day summit, saying that cryptocurrencies do not pose any “risk” on the global financial systems. The two-day G20 summit in Argentina concluded today, and cryptocurrency was set to be a hot topic among the global leaders.

Well, they have all come to an overall conclusion and have rejected the call to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, moving forward. This is great news and a surprise seeing as both Germany and France had been ADAmant on putting Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) regulation to the forefront of the summit’s agenda. So what does this mean exactly? Well, it means big things for the entire market as a whole as there won’t be any new regulations for Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) or aLTCoins anytime soon. It could still be revisited though but crypto enthusiasts can breathe for a little while.

At press time, the total cryptocurrency market cap is sitting just below the $350 billion mark but with this news, I see it pushing past $400 billion this week easily.

Originally Published March 19th, 2018

This weekend, the finance ministers of the world’s largest economies were told that cryptocurrencies “do not pose any risk” to the global financial system. The two-day G20 summit starts today in Argentina but Mark Carney, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Chairman, made a statement just before the chiefs headed to the summit. The FSB is the body that coordinates the financial regulations for the G20 countries.

Carney said:

“As its work to fix the fault lines that caused the financial crisis draws to a close, the FSB is increasingly pivoting away from the design of new policy initiatives towards dynamic implementation and rigorous evaluation of the effects of the agreed G20 reforms.”

Cryptocurrencies were set to be a hot topic among the Summit, as many different countries have scrambled in the last 9 months to attempt to regulate the digital assets. Carney believes that these assets pose issues around consumer and investor protection and he believes that criminals and terrorists use the digital tokens to shield illicit activity.

Carney also added, “Even at their recent peak, [cryptocurrencies] combined global market value was less than 1% of global GDP. In comparison, just prior to the global financial crisis (in 2008), the notional value of credit default swaps was 100% of global GDP.”