From: London School of Economics and Political Science | Media Policy Blog
Privacy and virtual identity researcher, Niels Vandezande of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT (ICRI) at the University of Leuven explores legislative developments targeting virtual currencies like bitcoin in the US and EU, and argues that 2015 may be an important year for virtual currencies due to increasing stability and upcoming court decisions.
Virtual currencies – and especially cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin – have been heavily discussed during the last year. At the moment, however, there is still little clarity on how virtual currencies are to be considered from a regulatory perspective. Previous discussions within various governments have mostly focused on how to tax capital gains made through virtual currencies. This has even resulted in a widely criticized US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) opinion that considered virtual currencies as property, rather than as a payment method.
One year after the sudden price surge of bitcoin – during which the virtual currency briefly broke the USD 1,000 barrier – the legal landscape seems to have changed very little. Sure, the days of wild speculation are over as the value of bitcoin moves along in a slow, mostly downward, trend – barely reaching the USD 400 mark in the last months. Lawmakers, however, are only just beginning to gear up for action.
New York’s BitLicense
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