Steffen Kern told lawmakers on Wednesday that reverse solicitation 'might be a particularly pronounced problem in this space of crypto assets.'
Image: Shutterstock
European Union (EU) officials claim that their landmark new legislation, the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA), would have prevented FTX-style collapses. On November 30, the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament held a hearing on the 'FTX cryptocurrency exchange collapse and implications for the EU.'
In a 'preliminary assessment of the events,' three European monetary officials testified about FTX, blockchain technology, and crypto regulation. Alexandra Jour-Schroeder, the deputy director general of the European Commission's financial stability unit, criticised the recently defunct crypto exchange during a hearing of the European Parliament's Committee on Monetary Affairs on Wednesday. There were questionable practises at FTX, including no proper record keeping or separation of customer and company accounts, she said, adding that the bloc accounted for about 10 per cent of the company's customers.
"All these failures are very serious. We don’t see them as failures of blockchain or crypto assets per se," Jour-Schroeder told a European Parliament hearing.
On November 28, the committee heard from Christine Lagrande, President of the European Central Bank. She cited the FTX fiasco as proof of the need for additional 'MiCA II' legislation. Talking about the same, Jour-Schroeder said,
"It has to be implemented. That does of course not mean the commission will stop thinking after MiCA 1."