Cryptocurrencies

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Cryptocurrencies are gaining new ground every day, asserting their presence as a future competitor to cash currencies, prompting major countries and others to take an interest in them, especially since the G20 summit held in Riyadh in November 2020. That summit tasked the Financial Stability Board, the Financial Action Task Force, and the International Monetary Fund with continuing to study how to achieve international monetary coordination to establish frameworks that protect those dealing with these currencies, while working on drafting laws that regulate their issuance and trading mechanisms at the international level, and issuing mandatory instructions to prevent this trading until controls are reached regarding it. These controls include the necessary legal, regulatory, and supervisory requirements for the safe trading of cryptocurrencies. The topic was also discussed in subsequent G20 meetings, as well as in various international gatherings.

This means that the policy of ignoring cryptocurrencies, which lasted for many years, has proven ineffective contrary to what seemed to be the case initially. The idea of 'Bitcoin', which is the most important of these currencies, began in 2008 and appeared on the internet the following year through unknown programmers who promoted it as a means to preserve the privacy of buyers and sellers, and to be free from the control of governments and banks, with transactions conducted through a peer-to-peer protocol, relying on modern encryption technologies to enhance security in transactions. These currencies only exist on the internet and through electronic wallets, and can be obtained either through mining according to specific mechanisms that have become known to those concerned, or by purchasing them from their markets and exchanges.

The bet made by those who believed that cryptocurrency trading would remain within narrow and limited frameworks, or that interest in it would fade, has not materialized. It has become clear that the use of cryptocurrencies is increasing rather than decreasing, which has imposed their presence on the global agenda in recent years, especially after growing concerns about them. This concern is justified, as cryptocurrencies can disrupt the functions of central banks around the world, be used to finance illicit transactions, evade taxes, and other potential problems.