A new cryptocurrency bill project has been submitted by executive power to the Uruguayan parliament. The bill seeks to give the Central Bank of Uruguay authority over cryptocurrency assets, amend its organic charter, introduce the Financial Services Supervisory Authority as the body to supervise virtual asset service providers, and clarify how crypto assets are regulated in the country.
Uruguay’s Executive Power Proposes Crypto Bill
Uruguay’s administrative authority has submitted a bill project to the country’s Congresswith the aim of clarifying how cryptocurrency asset-related activities are regulated. If approved, this will be the first bill to address the gray zone in which cryptocurrency exchanges and virtual asset service providers operate in the country.
The proposed bill amends the Organic Charter of the Central Bank of Uruguay and introduces the Financial Services Supervisory Authority, part of the Central Bank’s organization, as the main supervisor of virtual asset service providers’ activities. In this sense, it establishes that custody providers, companies that facilitate the purchase and exchange of virtual assets, and third parties that provide financial services related to the provision or sale of virtual assets are considered to be included in this class.
However, the bill introduces another class of entities as “virtual asset issuers,” defined as platforms that issue virtual assets of any kind included in the regulatory perimeter or that require admission of regulated virtual assets on a virtual asset trading platform.
Uruguay’s Central Bank becomes the main crypto watchdog
Like other legal projects in this area that introduce an institution as the main watchdog of crypto, the proposed bill puts all supervision related to these tasks in the hands of the country’s central bank. This document declares.
With the proposed amendments, both traditional regulated entities and newly established entities operating with virtual assets will be subject to the supervision and control powers of the Central Bank of Uruguay.
The text also mentions virtual asset securities, which are already known as the digital counterparts of financial securities.
There have been previous attempts to legalize crypto as a domestic payment method. The cryptocurrency bill project submitted last year by Senator Juan Sartori aimed to achieve this goal. Also in August, the Central Bank of Uruguay issued a summons to Binance for offering savings-oriented cryptocurrency-based financial products.
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