Spain's Economy Minister said the EU should not wait to agree on cryptocurrency regulation

At the G20 summit, Spain's Minister of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness Roman Escolano Olivares said that cryptocurrency is not a threat to the global financial system and that the European Union does not have to wait for international agreement before starting to develop regulation on its own.

The most important issues, in his opinion, are consumer protection and preventing the use of cryptocurrency in illegal activities. 

“We have come to a general agreement that cryptocurrency assets do not affect global financial stability, but they require constant monitoring. It is also necessary to solve problems associated with fraud and terrorist financing, which will require the anonymity of cryptocurrencies. This issue is being addressed by the Financial Conduct Task Force (FATF), which is the international body that regulates such activities. The FATF monitors such activities and develops legislation to prevent them,” the minister said.

World economic leaders agreed that issues of investor protection, tax evasion, market integrity, money laundering and terrorist financing must be addressed. Recommendations for regulation will be presented in July 2018, which will allow the development of the digital economy and its technologies, preventing the use of cryptocurrency in criminal activities.

Olivares believes that the new digital economy will help solve the problem of income distribution, and therefore there is no point in waiting for agreement at the international level. 

(Editor's note  Translated from diplomatic language into commonly understood language it sounds like this: “We don’t want to wait for the top to divide the pie as they see fit. We want to get our share now.” )

According to https://www.ccn.com