EU Parliament Committee Chair Advocates for Crypto Prohibitions in Light of Bank Turmoil – Regulation Bitcoin News

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A European legislator has requested that governments put into place a ban on digital currencies due to the current banking crisis. Johan Van Overtveldt, previously Belgium’s finance minister, believes that these assets bring no value to society.

Belgium’s Former Finance Minister Urges a Ban on Cryptocurrencies

Johan Van Overtveldt, a Member of the European Parliament, has stated that governments should forbid digital currencies like bitcoin. His statement comes following the collapse of several banking institutions, including two U.S. banks with a crypto-friendly stance.

“Another lesson to be learned from the current banking commotion. Enforce a strict ban on cryptocurrencies,” the politician, who has praised blockchain technology in the past, tweeted on Friday. “Speculative poison and no economic or social added value. If a government bans drugs, it should also ban cryptos,” he claimed.

Van Overtveldt is a Belgian journalist and politician from the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, who was Belgium’s finance minister between 2014 and 2018, during the government of Prime Minister Charles Michel.

He was elected to the European Parliament in 2019 where he currently presides over the Committee on Budgets and is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON).

ECR is a soft Eurosceptic, anti-federalist political group in the EU’s legislature. Free enterprise, minimal regulation, lower taxation, along with “small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity” are among its founding principles.

Overtveldt’s statement regarding digital currencies follows the crisis sparked by the failure of three banks in the U.S., two of which had experience in the crypto space – Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank. The effects of these bankruptcies even reached Europe, affecting Credit Suisse, a major investment bank on the continent.

Europe is yet to implement a comprehensive regulatory package for its crypto ecosystem, the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA). EU institutions together with member states agreed on the proposal last summer, to introduce rules for crypto service providers across the 27-strong bloc.

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Do you think Johan Van Overtveldt’s call for a crypto ban is justified? Share your opinion in the comments section below.

Lubomir Tassev

Lubomir Tassev is a journalist from tech-savvy Eastern Europe who likes Hitchens’s quote: “Being a writer is what I am, rather than what I do.” Besides crypto, blockchain and fintech, international politics and economics are two other sources of inspiration.

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