(本文翻譯自 陳冲 加密版的戰爭與和平 2022-04-15)
Leo Tolstoy once wrote War and Peace, now regarded as one of the greatest novels, telling the story of resisting foreign aggression of Imperial Russia. If he were born nowadays, he would found that the offense and defense sides have changed. If he added modern digital, crypto-related, and technological elements to the plot and released the novel during the time Russia invading Ukraine, it would undoubtedly cause a sensation all over the world.
In March when the Russia-Ukraine war made headlines every day, President Joe Biden, who criticized Russia almost every day, did something seemingly unrelated to the war. That is, to sign an executive order on digital assets on Mar. 9th, a move the media called a “first-ever” and “whole-of-government” one. At the beginning of the year, we Appacus Foundation had stated that in the past year, all sides, especially the governments, tend to use "crypto assets" instead of "cryptocurrency", and the aforementioned executive order makes it clear that digital assets, which US media mostly called crypto assets, include cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and CBDC (central bank digital currency). However, what catches my eyes is the phrase “responsible development” that the White House mentioned many times in the order. Consumer protection, financial stability, national security, and even innovation activities related to crypto assets must all be promoted and in a responsible way.
It is the first time American President expresses opinion on digital assets, and the content refers to not only National Security Affairs (APNSA) and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (APEP) within the White House, but also the Secretary of Treasury, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Defense, the Federal Reserve System etc., totaling 18 departments included. The scale is so unprecedented that no one should ignore such important thing. It identifies four goals and six principal policy objectives that require executive branch to cooperate with Congress and international partners to foster the competitiveness of the United States and reinforce its leadership in technology and economy. The full text really shows height of his presidency.
On March 31st, The European Parliament’s Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) passed the amendment to Europe’s Transfer of Funds Regulation with 93 votes to 14 (and 14 abstentions), banning anonymous crypto transactions. Though the draft has yet to be passed by European Parliament, it did attract public attraction. At the end of last year, Appacus Foundation had held a seminar on EU digital wallet policy, discussing digital identity and the problem of name-based system. Based on the understanding of the new EU system, it would not be surprising if the EU passes the law at the end.
That the US and the EU made moves successively in March made people wonder if there’s anything to do with the sanctions against Russia. But it seems a bit over thinking that these moves are for preventing Russia from using crypto assets to evade sanctions because Russia has always held hostile attitude towards DeFi cryptocurrencies and also lacks large-scale platforms in the country. In addition, major exchanges are quite cooperatively complying with anti-money laundering laws recent years so it’s not that easy for Russia to use cryptocurrencies as the weapon. We just don’t have to associate these moves to political factors.
However, the US executive order could contrarily be suggestive to Taiwan, especially the words “first-ever” and “whole-of-government” show that the President of the United States has finally realized the importance of digital assets. Just don’t know whether our president sticking closely to the policies of the United States could get the message. And as for our Premier, though responded in the Legislative Yuan that the government will decide the competent authority of NFT within a month, but what about digital assets other than NFT? It seems that our Premier hadn’t comprehended the executive order. Neither did he realize that departments of the government had long “saw off the arrow shaft “ instead of removing the arrowhead when encountered with digital assets problems. At present, there’s no competent authority in charge of normal business of digital assets except for anti-money laundering cases (also ignored actually), and issues like consumer protection, investment protection, industrial development, and national security are like rainbow untouchable. But well these are messages like beautiful roses Biden lays in front of us that we should not ignore.
Secretly ask, has Biden’s secret messenger signaled that responsible development is actually the essence of the whole text?
(Released on Appacus Foundation website, Apr. 15th, 2022)