US Regulators Recommend Oversight for Bitcoin and Distributed Ledgers
A major financial oversight body within the US government created in the wake of the financial crisis has identified bitcoin and distributed ledger systems in general as a potential systemic risk. The Financial Stability Oversight Committee (FSOC) said in the new report released yesterday that the technology represented an innovation that “appear[s] poised for substantial near-term growth” and that it is reflective of a shifting landscape that merits attention from regulators. As a broad recommendation, the committee said that regulators should prepare to adjust accordingly if the....
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Trying to make sense of how Russia feels about Bitcoin and blockchain has become increasingly difficult as of late. Now, the Russian Central Bank strongly feels blockchain and distributed ledgers are not the same thing. It is not the first time the Russian Central Bank has shown keen interest in distributed ledger technology, as the financial institution....
While some financial experts feel it is still too early something as significant as distributed ledgers, the question becomes how much longer they can afford to hold off on this inevitable change. The second SWIFT hack sheds an interesting light on permissioned systems and cybersecurity. Although no data has been hacked, the loss of money could have been prevented by using more modern technology, such as distributed ledgers as the one found in Bitcoin. Distributed Ledgers Vs. Archaic Centralized Systems. While it is commendable SWIFT representatives openly admit their network played a part....
Growth in the use of both digital currencies and distributed ledgers could hold regulatory and monetary policy implications, a senior official for Japan’s central bank said today. Speaking during a fintech event at the Univeristy of Tokyo, Bank of Japan deputy governor Hiroshi Nakaso remarked about the benefits and risks of the increasing digitization of financial services. Particularly, the noted that the use of distributed ledgers could lead to confusion among regulators in instances where wholly electronic ledgers are maintained. He told attendees: “Moreover, if FinTech stimulates....
The president and chairman of the board of Switzerland's central bank described a financial system "turned on its head" by blockchain and distributed ledgers to kick off the Sibos conference yesterday in Switzerland. Addressing a crowd of some 8,000 financial industry professionals, Thomas Jordan lectured on the history of centralization as a means to provide security and efficiency in the banking industry, from the birth of centralized clearing houses in the 1940s to the advent of the Six Interbank Clearing system (SIC) in 1987. But with blockchain and distributed ledgers....
Commissioner J Christopher Giancarlo of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said today that he believes the government agency should reexamine existing rules as necessary to foster innovation with blockchain technologies. Giancarlo’s remarks on the possibility of revisiting CFTC regulations in light of new blockchain applications came as part of a keynote address at the DTCC Blockchain Symposium today, in which he discussed his view on the implications of blockchain and distributed ledgers for regulators. Evoking comparisons to the Internet, Giancarlo went so far as to suggest....