French Crypto Companies Must Seek Authorization by 2024 Under New Lawmaker Plans

Cryptocurrency companies in France will have to obtain permission to operate from regulators if they are not already registered with the country's financial regulator by January 1, 2024, according to plans passed by lawmakers in the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Accordingly, the plans offer more leeway than the Senate, which in December proposed a cut-off date of October 2023 to stop crypto companies abusing new European Union rules known as Crypto Asset Market Regulation (MiCA).

Daniel Labaronne, author of the new legislation on behalf of the Assembly's Finance Committee, has proposed extending the date to January 1, 2024 to give new entrants a little more time to get their approval, which is quite a complicated process" and to give the Financial Markets Authority more time to process applications.

Without the amendment proposed by Laboronne, there would be “a risk that crypto exchanges would register only to take advantage of the grandfather clause provided by MiCA, which means that they would not have to obtain a full license until March 2026,” L noted. . The committee.

The committee accepted his proposal, which now has to be approved by the Assembly next week and cleared by the Senate.

Senate member Hervé Moray proposed to tighten the law after the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. The current French law allows companies to go through a simplified registration procedure, rather than obtaining a permit that requires more rigorous checks on financial resources and doing business. Although many companies, including Binance and Societe Generale, have registered, none of them have received permission yet.

The French crypto industry reacted with concern to these proposals, arguing that they could interfere with France's goal of becoming a crypto hub.