European Crypto Exchange: Gold Can Simplify Bitcoin Regulatory Headaches

According to one major European digital currency exchange, Bitcoin’s main problem remains regulation and lack of legitimacy.

On Monday Austria-based Bitpanda GmbH co-CEO Eric Demuth told Bloomberg:

“Regulation provides us with more legitimacy. We’ve wanted to be regulated, but so far have been told that we cannot be.’’

Financial regulators yet look for the best way to oversee bitcoin transactions. In the meantime, bitcoin exchanges like Bitpanda are trying to come up with their own rules to boost credibility.

One of the solutions Australian government is looking at is applying gold’s trading rules to cryptocurrencies.

Austrian Finance Minister Hartwig Loeger said in February, that their big worry about digital currencies is money laundering. He says:

“Cryptocurrencies are significantly gaining importance in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing. That’s an important aspect for the changes we support. We need more trust and more security.”

Loeger suggested to use the same rules as with precious metals trading, which requested bitcoin traders to identify their counterparties and to report all transactions above 10,000 euros ($12,300) to the financial intelligence unit.

And bitcoin exchanges seem to be all for it. More than that, Bitpanda is working on establishing even closer ties with the government to improve transparency and credibility of bitcoin trading.

The other co-CEO Paul Klanschek thinks, that Bitpanda wants to see regulation come from the EU level.