Key facts:
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts participated in the Bitcoin Forum, organized by the Mexican Senate
Dialogue between users and regulators is essential to regulate bitcoin, say specialists.
Fear, ignorance and uncertainty are the aspects that have prevented Mexico from having a regulatory framework focused on bitcoin (BTC) and its entire ecosystem, which opens gaps between society and the new digital economy.
This is suggested by the accountant and bitcoin enthusiast, Vanessa Solís Caballero. For her, the Mexican regulators fear that a regulatory framework threatens or harms somehow the financial system of that country, something that does not necessarily happen, he said.
“There are examples that a regulation may or may not harm the financial system,” Solís said. “We want measures to know how to operate with digital assets,” he said.
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Solis, who was part from the discussion Fintech Law and the Role of Regulators of the Bitcoin Forumorganized by the Senate of Mexico, specified that in his country, although there is the aforementioned legislative document and others related to taxes, there is nothing clear about the use of cryptocurrencies.
Rebeca Álvarez maintains that the Mexican Fintech law is insufficient. Source: Facebook.
“There is ignorance, fear, uncertainty, and that is why distance is created,” he criticized. “But there are countries that, without the need to compromise the financial system, have created regulatory frameworks,” he commented.
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Therefore, it is important to adapt current legislation to this new economy.
“We are in areas of uncertainty and we need certainty, and that will be provided by the laws, making everyone apply them. We are fans of decentralization, but the people who are doing things right, who are not laundering money and are using the assets to improve transactions by taking advantage of technology, want to regularize but don’t know how.”
Vanessa Solís Caballero, accountant and bitcoin enthusiast.
Fintech law is not enough
Rebeca Álvarez, managing partner of the Loxical law firm, which works with new technologies, also participated in the panel. She suggests that in Mexico the regulation of the Bitcoin ecosystem is “systematic” and that the Fintech law does not cover the entire cryptographic spectrum, making it “insufficient”.
He specifies that, in its beginnings, the legislation, which he branded as paternalistic, was based on the protection of the user against companies, avoiding risks for people who use new technologies to pay and consume.
However, and when there is a full boom in the use of these assets in the Central American countrythe lawyer calls on the authorities to be part of the discussion to regulate its use. “It is important that there are legislators, the public sector, that there are judges. Without these three elements, the Mexican legal system cannot function,” he warned.
“We invite a dialogue to generate confidence of legislators towards this technology. We cannot move forward without this issue,” she noted. “Also that clear, broad, flexible concepts be defined and that go according to business models focused on cryptocurrencies,” he added.
Ongoing legal reform
What the market enthusiasts mentioned retracts the proposal of the Mexican senator Indira Kempis, who proposes a complete monetary legal reform, which would imply, among other things, converting bitcoin into legal tender. This was an announcement that she made during the Bitcoin Conference 2022 and later reiterated in a interview with CriptoNoticias.
On April 6, the legislator introduced a couple of legal reform initiatives and in none of them mentioned bitcoin or any other digital asset. In detail, it was a reform of the Monetary Law and, as Kempis pointed out, a first step before finally proposing the Bitcoin Law.
However, the Central Bank of Mexico proposed to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as soon as 2024, in order to take advantage of the technology for this new type of money.
Thus, the debate in Mexico is open and it will only be necessary to see the development of events, in which it will be seen if the centralization of the CBDC prevails over the benefits of Bitcoin or, on the contrary, decentralization ends up being preferred.