Malta prepares to revise regulatory treatment of NFTs

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) is presently reviewing requests to revise the “regulatory treatment” of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) wrong its Virtual Financial Assets Framework. 

Under the existent regulatory framework, NFTs are included wrong the scope of the Virtual Financial Assets Act, which besides includes virtual tokens, virtual fiscal assets, physics money, and each fiscal instruments built, oregon babelike on, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

However, the MFSA is proposing to person NFTs removed from the Virtual Financial Assets model since they’re unsocial and nonfungible and truthful incapable of being utilized arsenic payments for goods and services, oregon for concern purposes. 

According to the MFSA, “the inclusion of specified assets wrong the scope of the VFA model whitethorn tally antagonistic to the tone of the Act, which sought to modulate investment-type services offered successful narration to VFAs falling extracurricular the scope of existing accepted fiscal work plus categories. “

The governing authorization is presently inviting feedback from stakeholders earlier officially implementing these caller revisions into its framework. 

Related: Chinese tribunal says NFTs are virtual spot protected by law

In November, Cointelegraph reported that Malta was starring the way successful Southern Europe with respect to cryptocurrency regulation. 

In 2018, the Maltese parliament enacted 3 laws establishing a broad regulatory model for blockchain and integer currencies. The Virtual Financial Assets Act regulates the tract of archetypal coin offerings, integer assets, integer currencies, and related services, portion the Innovative Technological Arrangements and Services Act enables the Malta Digital Innovation Authority to oversee the registration of exertion work providers.

The country’s existent fiscal regulatory model recognizes 4 chiseled categories of integer assets, taxable to antithetic sets of rules: physics money, fiscal instruments, virtual (utility) tokens and virtual fiscal assets (VFAs).