Italian Securities Oversight Authority Becomes Serious About Crypto Regulation

The Head of the financial regulator in Italy has grown concerns over the local crypto industry and the fact that the industry is doing business even without the regulation. He thinks that proper regulation is a must which would enable the regulator to implement proper oversight or else the transparency in the crypto market will be eroded completely.

Paolo Savona, who is the Chairman of the regulator of securities in Italy, has serious issues with the local crypto industry. The authority which looks at the affairs of financial securities in Italy is known as Commissione Nazionale per le Societa e la Borsa.

For the past two years, there has been a tremendous increase in the usage of cryptocurrencies in Italy. Especially when the pandemic damaged Italy’s economy, the Italians who were mostly sitting idles in homes, developed an interest in crypto. During this time, the country saw huge growth in the local crypto market. Seeing the potential, more and more institutional and individual investors then started to inject investments in crypto. As usual, Bitcoin’s fame was the same in Italy as it was elsewhere in the world.

Even the Government did not initially see any harm except that there occasions where crypto frauds were committed. Also, the instances of ransomware attacks were also seen in great numbers in Italy, yet they did not bother anyone. The market continued to grow until the world started to speak about crypto regulation. When most of the countries in Europe became part of this crypto regulation debate, Italy too was non-deliberately dragged into it. However, it is still an unsolved question whether the Italian Government itself became part of the discussion or it followed regional countries’ initiative.

But it is certain now that the Italian regulator is serious about regulating the crypto industry. The regulator’s chairman has said that oversight has become necessary and it cannot be overlooked any further. He said that there is an urgent need of regulation which would enable the regulator to implement proper check and balance. With the regulations, the regulator can then ensure transparency in the crypto market which would be in the interest of crypto investors.

Savona noticed that currently there are at least 5 thousand cryptocurrencies and all of them are present in Italy. Almost all of them have been exchanging hands while there is a lack of rules and regulations. He said that recently the authority has taken down several phony websites alleging to be offering legitimate crypto schemes. However, all of them were fraud and therefore shut down. He said that investment is a serious business and looking at the numbers of these fake websites, the authority is seriously worried.

In addition, he said that this is a fact that crypto is used as a tool for the execution of crypto crimes. The worst usage of crypto is that terrorism funding is also done on the basis of crypto. He advised that the Government will need to do something with regard to regulations and it has to be done immediately.