Top EU Commissioner: Some Crypto Advocates Favor ‘Dangerous’ Anti-Regulation Path

The policymaker overseeing the European Union’s introduction of new rules on the crypto industry has said those opposed to regulation are on a “dangerous path”.

As lawmakers prepare to vote on Europe’s landmark Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation next year, European commissioner for financial services Mairead McGuinness said that the impending rules were already having an effect.

But she added that while some companies want to be regulated and are already acting in compliance with the coming directive, others oppose the idea.

“Some of those who were involved in crypto, from the very outset, were doing it because they didn’t want to be part of the regulated, managed system,” she told CNBC, adding that, “They want it to be separate from and in parallel to it. That’s a very dangerous path.”

It comes as the collapse of crypto exchange FTX piles pressure on regulators around the world to show they are protecting consumers.

Alluding to the FTX meltdown, McGuinness said: “We have seen events, let me put it like that, in this crypto space. Which maybe is a wake-up call for those who thought that investments would only increase in value.”

Global co-operation on crypto

McGuinness has been a staunch advocate of making cryptocurrency regulation uniform across both the European bloc and beyond.

In recent months, she has led efforts to share the EU’s experience regarding MiCA with U.S. officials and to discuss the possibility of a joined-up approach.

Earlier this year, she called for a global effort to regulate crypto in an op-ed for D.C. publication The Hill.

In the CNBC interview, McGuinness said of the talks with her American counterparts: “What I found in the U.S. is huge interest in what we were doing here, and the markets and crypto assets legislation. And I believe there will be developments there.”