Bank of Italy selectively encouraging DLT, preparing for MiCA, governor says

The Bank of Italy is looking for caller ways to use distributed ledger exertion (DLT) and is preparing for the advent of Markets successful Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, slope politician Ignazio Visco told a legislature of Assiom Forex, the Italian fiscal markets association, connected Feb. 4. 

DLT whitethorn connection benefits specified arsenic cheaper cross-border transactions and accrued fiscal strategy efficiency, Visco said. The Italian cardinal slope “is focused connected the request to place areas” wherever DLT tin lend to fiscal stableness and user protection.

Visco expressed the tendency to spot regulations that sorted retired the crypto-asset marketplace to abstracted “highly risky instruments and services that divert resources from productive activities and corporate well-being” from those that bring tangible payment to the economy:

“The dispersed of the second tin beryllium fostered by processing rules and controls akin to those already enforced successful the accepted fiscal system; the former, instead, indispensable beryllium powerfully discouraged.”

Visco specifically mentioned “crypto-assets with nary intrinsic value” among the erstwhile group.

CB speech: Ignazio Visco (IT): Speech - 29th ASSIOM FOREX Congress - https://t.co/sDpA90yT5l

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The Bank of Italy is moving astatine the European and planetary levels to make the exertion and a model of standards, Visco said. It is besides collaborating with Italian securities marketplace regulator CONSOB and the Ministry of Economy and Finance to initiate the “authorization and supervision activities” of MiCA.

Related: EU postpones last ballot connected MiCA for the 2nd clip successful 2 months

Italy precocious imposed a 26% superior gains tax on crypto-asset trading implicit 2,000 euros successful 2023. However, Italian taxpayers have the prime of paying a 14% taxation connected their crypto-asset holding arsenic of Jan. 1. This alternate is intended to incentivize taxpayers to state their integer holdings.

Visco estimated the fig of Italian households that ain crypto assets astatine 2% and said those holdings were “modest amounts connected average.”