Francesco Boccia, Italian politician and member of the Democratic Party (PD) expressed his opinion on Libra, Facebook’s cryptocurrency, and on crypto in general.
“Facebook will launch Libra in 2020, their cryptocurrency joins all the others in existence and without regulation. What do governments think? And central banks? What about the European Commission? All in silence. And those of us who have been posing the problem for years is considered crazy”, writes Boccia on Twitter.
The lack of crypto regulation in Italy is now a fact, although recently some progress has been made with the Consob, which in March gave rise to a public consultation on the issue of ICOs, providing for a sudden non-regulation of all activities related to cryptocurrencies, and the initiation of a system of optional supervision.
“As it was easy to predict, there are more and more cryptocurrencies of all kinds and alternative means of payment with an increasingly unconstrained use. There is no regulation and the risk of chaos is around the corner. Politics at all levels, national and EU, cannot stand by and watch,” Boccia adds in a press release.
From Boccia’s words, however, emerges a pessimistic vision and above all a very worried one about a “unconstrained use” of cryptocurrencies, as if to predict a more stringent regulation for the future.
Regulation may well be a good thing, but as long as it is a form of investor protection and not a form of oppression. Countries such as Malta and Switzerland, in fact, have decided to regulate cryptocurrencies and are achieving great results becoming real hubs of blockchain technology, with ever-increasing startups, capital and jobs.
Regulating cryptocurrencies on the one hand, therefore, could succeed in removing that veil of uncertainty that leads entrepreneurs to abandon the Bel Paese. However, on the other, excessive regulation could lead to a boomerang effect.
Obviously, there is talk of ICOs and the companies, because, in reality – as Antonopoulos says – “Cryptos won’t be regulated (ever)”.