On December 15, Adan responded to the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) consultation entitled “International Regulation of Crypto-asset Activities”.

In summary, Adan thanks the FSB for consulting with stakeholders in the crypto-asset industry to build an effective regulatory framework that ensures that crypto-asset activities are subject to comprehensive regulation commensurate with the risks they pose to financial stability, while harnessing the potential benefits of the technology behind them.

Since its creation in 2020, the Association has always supported the development of international standards around this new asset class whose activities are cross-border in nature.

While crypto-assets have been experiencing exponential adoption by citizens around the world for several years, the FSB has a fundamental role to play in making the industry more virtuous and ensuring that the risks this new asset class may pose to financial stability are effectively addressed through commensurate industry standards and effective coordination among all states around the world.

In summary, here are the key messages carried by Adan:

  • While crypto-assets have been experiencing exponential adoption by citizens around the world for several years, the FSB has a fundamental role to play in making the industry more virtuous and ensuring that the risks this new asset class may pose to financial stability are effectively addressed through commensurate industry standards and effective coordination among all states around the world.
  • Adan agrees that the FSB’s recommendations on crypto-assets should apply to all types of crypto-asset activities, including stablecoins, while certain activities, including those related to GSBs (global stablecoins), should be subject to additional requirements. The recommendations for crypto-assets are sufficiently broad and proportionate to be applied to these assets, while many of the requirements proposed by the GSB are already implemented at the European level, proving that they can be perfectly executed at the global level to ensure consistency in these inherently cross-border markets.
  • However, the qualification of global stablecoins (GSB) could be further developed to leave less room for interpretation by FSB member states. Indeed, while the recommendations are usefully broad and proportionate, it is necessary to have explicit definitional criteria – via thresholds in particular – in order to avoid any regulatory disparity and to provide the same level of guarantees for financial stability in the various jurisdictions.
  • While the report provides a fairly comprehensive treatment of recent events in the stablecoin markets, Adan reiterates that these events should not call into question their value proposition and the opportunities they offer to users. In addition, it would be appropriate for the report to examine the regulatory treatment of stablecoins backed by crypto-assets as well as new forms of hybrid algorithmic stablecoins, and the development of euro-backed stablecoins.

Adan remains at the disposal of FSB members to discuss this document and to organize technical exchanges with its members on the proposed recommendations.

Adan’s responseDownload