Taiwan will enact special legislation that would grant the local Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) a mandate to regulate cryptocurrencies. The information was confirmed by the head of the agency Huang Tien-mu, Bloomberg.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Wayne Huang, cofounder and CEO of the XREX platform, welcomed the imminent regulatory clarity. He said industry participants could join forces to aid the FSC in developing a set of rules.
The principles of the document are expected by June, with the bill due in the following months.
The impetus for the initiative could have been the collapse of FTX — locals, relatively speaking, ended up being the largest users of the platform.
Previously the island had taken a neutral stance toward digital assets, requiring crypto exchanges only to comply with AML rules.
According to Huang, the FSC will focus on regulating virtual assets tied to payments and trading, while the cabinet will hand the rest to other government agencies. In particular, stablecoins could fall under the central bank’s remit.
The commission will not regulate NFTs due to their “immature as an asset class” nature, according to Wayne Huang, CEO of XREX.
“Because of their extensibility and composability, non-fungible tokens can represent a wide range of things, from commercial products to commodities and securities,” Wayne explained.
In July 2022, FSC sent a letter to the banking association demanding a ban on using credit cards to pay for digital assets.