chaintimes.com
The manager of theCentral Bank of Colombia (Banco de la República), Leonardo Villar, believes that despite the implicit risks in cryptocurrencies due to their high degree of volatility and lack of support, their acceptance and regulation represents an important step. Financial regulators across countries are actively working on cryptocurrency regulations. Recently, El Salvador passed a law legalizing bitcoin as an optional legal tender.
“Cryptocurrencies must be regulated.”
The senior official of the Colombian issuing institute presented part of his thoughts on the future of cryptocurrencies in the South American country during his participation in the Congress on Comprehensive Risk Management, organized by businessmen and insurance executives. Villar said, “cryptocurrencies are mechanisms that have elements that could be interesting for the future, but which must first be regulated.” Although the manager did not say so explicitly, his words revealed that cryptocurrencies would be part of the Colombian financial system sooner rather than later. Several countries have already established crypto regulations, but in most parts of the world, crypto regulations remain in a grey area.
The growing use of cryptocurrencies encourages regulations.
Colombia appears with relatively high use of cryptocurrencies, which could be linked to it being a good way to handle illegal activities. That forces us to have this type of activity highly regulated and to be very careful with the way it is carried out,” Villar noted. Villar’s words only confirm that the cryptocurrency regulation process in Colombia is advancing by leaps and bounds. Although cryptocurrencies in the country are not regulated, it has not been declared illegal by the government either. Bitcoin transactions alone last year reached 147 million dollars in Colombia, which places Colombia among the Latin American nations and the world where this cryptocurrency is most traded.