EU draft law to equate NFTs with securities

According to the legislation, holders of non-fungible tokens will be equated to holders of a stake in the company that issued them

22.09.2022 - 14:45

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2 min

What’s new? According to the draft of the European Union Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) law that has hit the web, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) sold as part of large collections have almost no unique properties or utility, and are therefore subject to the same regulatory controls as cryptocurrencies. According to University of Kentucky law professor Brian Fyre, the wording of the law is equivalent to the EU classifying large NFT collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Cryptopunks, Doodles and others as securities. This is reported by Decrypt.

Information on the Decrypt website

What does the expert say? Fyre argues that according to MiCA, the EU sees each buyer of Bored Ape NFT not as holders of unique tokens, but as owners of a share of the collective value of the BAYC brand and the collection's developer company, Yuga Labs.

This is not the first time the question of which components of the crypto industry should be considered securities by government regulators has been raised. Previously, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that the entire Ethereum network should be considered a securities exchange under US regulation. According to Fyre, if the EU starts classifying collections of non-fungible tokens as securities, the impact on US regulators will be inevitable.

In mid-August, the European Central Bank (ECB) outlined its plan to harmonize the regulatory framework governing cryptocurrency activity across the EU. The regulator explained that banks are increasingly considering whether to offer cryptocurrency products to their customers, and the ECB's role is to “ensure they do so safely and soundly.”

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