The international Group of Seven, better known as the G7, is reportedly primed to push for stronger cryptocurrency laws to boost the sector’s transparency and improve consumer protection.
A report published by a leading Japanese news agency, Kyodo News, claims that G7 intends to support the creation of more stringent cryptocurrency laws worldwide to strengthen transparency and consumer protections within the volatile sector. The news comes only days before Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida hosts this year’s G7 summit in Hiroshima.
According to the report, which cites unnamed sources privy to the information, the G7 will speed up related discussions in preparation for a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in mid-May this year.
The G7 is an exclusive political and economic forum comprising seven of the world’s biggest economies, including the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. The European Union (EU) is also a non-enumerated member.
G7 hopes to establish global regulatory standards for crypto
While most of these nations have active crypto sectors, each country’s industry is regulated at different levels. Japan is the only one with explicit crypto regulations. Others, like Canada and the US, currently use existing financial restrictions made for the traditional financial sector to police the new technology.
As such, the report indicates the countries hope to be at the forefront of establishing international regulatory standards for crypto, even though they currently have markedly different approaches to the sector.
The mooted discussions will reportedly attempt to craft a collective statement of the G7 members’ efforts in a leaders’ declaration amid rising concerns about potential risks to the global financial system posed by crypto assets.
Per Kyodo News’ sources, the G7’s decision is in response to last year’s FTX collapse, which exposed the industry’s less-than-acceptable management practices and rocked the broader financial markets.
Meanwhile, this month, two unexpected failures of banks associated with the crypto industry in the United States have also alarmed investors. Silvergate Bank, which catered to cryptocurrency clients, and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which specialized in working with technology start-ups, were both insolvent.
