In about twenty days, the EU will officially recognize the “virtual currencies”
This necessarily implies that all EU Member States by January 2020 will have to recognize virtual currencies.
In fact, the EU Directive 2018/843 of the Parliament and of the European Council will come into force, published in the Official Journal of the European Union as L 156 of 19.06.2018.
The directive will have to be implemented by the various states by January 10, 2020, since they are bound to introduce it as an interpretive canon, but in fact, it will start to be applied as early as the end of July 2018.
Here is the definition is given to them by the EU:
“a representation of digital value that is not issued or guaranteed by a central bank or a public body, is not necessarily linked to a legally established currency, does not have the legal status of currency or currency, but is accepted by physical and legal people as a medium of exchange and can be transferred, stored and exchanged electronically “.
In fact, this definition is, correctly, only an observation of a fact, since it does not introduce any novelty (which is more than obvious).
The directive’s text also stresses that “Virtual currencies should not be confused with e-money. […] Although virtual currencies can often be used as a means of payment, they could also be used for other purposes and have wider use. , for example as a means of exchange, investment, as valuable value products or used in online casinos “.
The directive also adds the figure of the “digital wallet service provider”, defining it as “a person who provides services to safeguard private cryptographic keys on behalf of its customers, in order to hold, store and transfer virtual currencies”.
The word cryptocurrency is never mentioned, and bitcoin is never mentioned, but it is more than evident that the directive refers to them.
In fact, with this text the EU officially recognizes the cryptocurrencies, giving them a different legal status than the fiat currencies, and forces the Member States to do the same. So soon Japan will no longer be the only major country to have officially recognized cryptocurrencies, but by 2020 Germany, France, Italy, Spain and all other nations that are part of the European Union will also be added.
