G20 Hears Out Multiple Crypto Reports in July, Waiting for FATF to Test Its Standards by October

The G20, after it was called upon by France's finance minister Bruno Le Maire to have a public debate about cryptocurrencies at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, made strides towards a global front for regulation of digital currencies.

Now, with the July deadline come and gone, the G20 has reiterated its March commitments, but has also decided to move to a new deadline of October where it will await the Financial Action Task Force clarification on how its standards apply to what it calls crypto-assets.

"I am going to propose to the next G20 president, Argentina, that at the G20 summit in April we have a discussion all together on the question of Bitcoin. There is evidently a risk of speculation. We need to consider and examine this and see how with all the other G20 members, we can regulate Bitcoin."

The first indications the discussions may be positive for cryptocurrencies came as Bank of England governor and head of the Financial Stability Board Mark Carney told G20 members that crypto assets "Do not pose risks" to the world's economy.

With July being the decided upon deadline by the G20 to offer specific recommendations on what data is needed for the regulation of cryptocurrencies they looked to commissions and committees to supply information.

In July the FATF came back with a report, but the G20 decided to set a new October deadline.

According to a communiqué, the G20 waited to see how the FATF can apply its standards to cryptocurrencies.

The FATF, with its mandate from the G20 to develop a program to implement standards preventing money laundering and terrorist financing through crypto-assets, has released its working program which will come into force from July 1, 2018 until June 30, 2019.

With October being set as the next point in which the G20 will come together to take further steps toward global cryptocurrency regulation, it is interesting to see how much the cryptocurrency space will have evolved in this time.

"We reiterate our March commitments related to the implementation of the FATF standards and we ask the FATF to clarify in October how its standards apply to crypto-assets."