The European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB) welcomes the opportunity to participate in the Commission’s online public consultation on crypto-assets. First of all, we strongly believe and agree with the Commission’s technologically neutral approach. Legislation should be technology agnostic/neutral, whether account-based or register-based.
The EACB believes that the scope of the Commission’sinitiative should be limited to crypto-assets. As there is no a single widely agreed classification of crypto-assets at EU level, we think it would be useful to have one via EU non-legislative guidance on how to classify crypto-assets coming from either the ECB or the EBA and ESMA.
EACB members are of the view that a classification based on intended functions would be the best choice. We would propose a classification, which makes a a distinction based on their intended functions, between ‘payment tokens’, ‘investment tokens’ and ‘utility tokens’. Payment tokens: means of payment according to PSD2/EMD2; security tokens (sometimes also called “Investment tokens”) as defined by MiFID II as “tradable securities”; and utility tokens, which enable (discounted) access to a certain service/product/platform (like a voucher). Concerning ‘hybrid tokens’, we know that they are in the market; however, we think that ‘hybrid tokens’ should not be considered in the classification to avoid uncertainties or grey zones, as the primary function should define the regulatory regime.
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