The Quest for a Pan-European Approach to Cryptocurrency

Part of the appeal of digital currencies is their global nature. Since the vast majority of digital currencies are not sponsored by an individual state, the hope was that the crypto world could be largely borderless. This has turned out to be a bit of a pipe dream. It turns out that countries actually do matter when it comes to digital currencies, as they have the power of the law and the ability to regulate.

It very much matters if an individual trader is located in China, where almost all cryptocurrencies are outlawed, rather than Japan, which has created a comprehensive system for using and trading currencies.

We’ve moved past the period in which many countries had their proverbial “head in the sand” when it comes to digital assets. There is a growing realization that the digital asset economy is a permanent part of the economic landscape, as well as an increasing wrestling about how this will work. While every individual provider may have preferences about the direction…