France Takes Action against Unauthorized Crypto Platforms
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In a recent development, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), France’s financial markets regulator issued a new warning in respect to the local crypto space. It has advised the citizens to maintain distance from the use of unauthorized crypto platforms. The supreme authority has barred some of the businesses entities operating crypto trading from a license and has warned citizens from dealing with such institutions.
The warning was issued against four identified law breaking crypto platforms as a notice on Monday. The websites blacklisted by the government are bitoraxe.com, solutioncrypto.com, connect-coin.fr, and solution-crypto.com.
However, it should be noted that connect-coin.fr is already offline, but the remaining three are still working with the traffic of solution-crypto.com being directed to solutioncrypto.com.
Currently, the country is trying to develop a legal framework for initial coin offerings (ICOs) which will probably be launched by 2020. Thus, the authorities have taken a strict stance against violators of the law especially form the space of digital currencies. On the other hand, the capital gains tax over virtual coin earnings was reduced from 45 percent to 19 percent in April.
One should know that France has acknowledged bitcoin and other altcoins as moveable property which is the reason a holder has to pay only the flat 19 percent tax rate. Before the adjustment, capital gains from virtual currencies was defined as industrial and commercial profits. While those trading only a small amount of virtual coins were grouped under the bracket of non-commercial profits.
AMF is an independent public authority which looks over the security of savings invested in financial products. According to the law no. 2016-1691 on transparency, an investment offer cannot be directly marketed in the country without a registration number and approval from the AMF.
Earlier this year, the financial authority came up with a list of 15 websites which were conducting crypto trades without any authorization. There are three lists of unlawful websites with the regulator- one for binary options, one for Forex products and one for goods including wines, diamonds, and digital currencies. Illegal sites were being explored by the agency from July 2017 and crypto websites came under investigation from December.
The nation is not totally against cyber coins as the upcoming Blockchain and Bitcoin conference will be held in France on July 18. Smile-Expo, the organizer, claimed that the meeting would be attended by tech giants IBM and Microsoft. One of the key elements of the conference would be the Hyperledger Fabric. It is a feature of Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project which is focused on assisting collaborative blockchain development. Thus, the event will have a major impact on the future of both blockchain and digital currencies.
All in all, it seems that France is pushing hard to establish a developed but legally controlled crypto space. Any website probed by the agency is in benefit of investors which are duped every now and then due to their lack of information. Before making any investments, have a considerable look at the history and the authenticity of any trading platform as nobody can bring back funds from the crypto sphere.
