The regulation of exchanges and service providers of bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies will not be complete until the regulation of the government of Gustavo Petro arrives. And that’s where the problems could start.
so it He suggested lawyer Juan Rachi, co-founder of the Colombian law firm Phylo, who participated in a podcast with Juan Pablo Mejía (@juanencripto). The lawyer recalled that the project was approved in the third debate in the Sixth Commission of the Colombian Senate a few weeks ago and that there is still a fourth debate in Congress, before its conversion into the law of that country.
If approved in this instance, the project must pass to the National Executive, which must punish him as established by jurisprudence Colombian.
It will be from the promulgation and publication of the project in the Official Gazette that the regulation will enter into force in the Republic of Colombia. If everything goes as planned, the law that regulates bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges in Colombia could enter into force in the third quarter of 2023.
But its complete application in companies that are already operating in Colombia It won’t be for another yearapproximately, the date when the Single Registry of Service Providers with Cryptoactives (RUPIC) should be fully operational, as explained by the lawyer Rachi.
As specified, in that period of time, companies in the sector they will have enough time to adjust to the new Colombian regulation that will govern its operations.
Petro regulation, a possible tack on the road
In addition to the registration of providers, Rachi mentioned the regulation of the law, a task in charge of the national government, currently led by the socialist Gustavo Petro. This could impede the full implementation of legislation until it is published.
On this, Rachi recalled that in the current project that regulates cryptocurrency service providers, it is established that the Colombian Executive will have periods of time to establish norms regarding certain activities.
And it’s how it is tidy in Colombian law, the figure of the president has regulatory powerwhich is the constitutional power to issue general regulations for the execution and enforcement of a law.
This power of the President of the Republic is characterized for being an inalienable, non-transferable and inexhaustible constitutional attribution, “because it does not have a term and can be exercised at any time, and cannot be waived, because it is an essential attribute for the Administration to fulfill its function of executing the law.”
It is precisely in this intervention by the Petro government that the impact of the regulation will begin to be felt and note possible barriers to entry into the ecosystem of Colombian cryptocurrencies, according to Juan Rachi.
In his opinion, it will be the government that defines Who will be in charge of regulating the sector? of crypto assets. Which could be “dangerous” for the development of the industry, Rachi suggested.
In this sense, although he defended that the bill marks a path, it will provide tools, it will establish guidelines and it will set rules of the game, “the minutiae, that detail, the carpentry with which it will have to be complied with, will not come until the government regulates the matter”.
It is not clear whether the Petro government will indeed could be a stumbling block in the regulatory process of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in the land of coffee. Above all, considering that the president has been characterized by confusing the community with his contradictions around the sector.
