Sector pacesetters lead dialogue on digital currency compliance standards

Elastos, the decentralized infrastructure for secure internet-based transactions, hosted a meeting of blockchain and digital currency space leaders to talk about the future of regulations, compliance and best practices throughout the sector ecosystem.

Representatives of exchanges, including HBUS and 0x, and compliance directors from top blockchain projects attended the gathering to take part in a valuable discussion regarding the regulatory framework required to promote the maturation of the sector.

“Compliance has become one of the most important issues in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space,” said Elastos CMO Fay Li in a press release CoinReport received from Wachsman, Elastos’ PR firm.

“Every legitimate project wants to be compliant, but the lack of clarity on compliance standards is holding back the technological movement. Elastos has made compliance a priority and we plan to continue to lead on this important issue. The conversation we are starting today is representative of the dialogue that needs to take place across the world, and here in the United States in particular.”

The digital currency regulation scene in the U.S. stays mostly vague. As recently elected officials are ready to take office at the new year’s beginning, regulation encircling developing technology and blockchain compliance are expected to be among the most crucial talking points within the legislature.

Blockchain advisor, entrepreneur and Crypto Weekly founder Chris McCann moderated panel discussions at the gathering. Over the course of the two panels, speakers evaluated best practices about regulation of digital currency and blockchain.

The first set of panelists spoke about their work on compliance and the future of digital currency regulation, while the second panel focused on what exchanges require to be compliant, and what they seek in a coin before deciding to list it.

0x’s Jason Somensatt said regarding securities and money transmitter regulation, “Answers to high level taxonomy questions around securities law are going to define how the space moves forward, but from a day to day operations perspective, you have to live with uncertainty. I spend a lot of time thinking about what the best practices we can execute upon within our company are, to at least minimize risk as much as possible.”

Echoing the views of speakers from HBUS and Circle, BitFlyer’s Hailey Lennon stated, “This whole space is new technology into old law, and so there has to be some sort of more definitive guidance from regulatory agencies. We don’t have clarity on what that clear guidance, in plain English will be — but it needs to happen.”

Distinguished speakers at the meeting were Lindsey Lin, counsel for Stellar; Steven Nam, chief editor of the Stanford Codex Blockchain Journal and professor at Stanford Law School; Megan Monroe, head of compliance for HBUS and Hailey Lennon, director of compliance for BitFlyer.

Images via Elastos’ GitHub community