European Commission Proposal for Pilot Distributed Ledger Technology Regime Regulation

The European Commission has published a proposal for a new EU Regulation on a pilot regime for distributed ledger technology. The pilot regime is intended to promote legal certainty, to support innovation, to preserve market integrity and to ensure financial stability for the use of DLT in crypto-asset and e-money token markets. The Commission has simultaneously published a proposed Regulation on markets in crypto-assets and e-money tokens. The proposed Regulations follow the Commission's consultation on an EU framework for crypto-assets, which closed in January 2020.
 
The proposed DLT Regulation sets out the permissions regime for operators of DLT market infrastructures (namely trading venues and central securities depositories), the operating conditions for those infrastructures and the supervisory regime applicable to them. The proposed Regulation also envisages that the European Securities and Markets Authority will produce a report, at the latest after a five-year period, on the pilot DLT regime, in response to which the Commission will publish its own report on whether the regime should be maintained, amended or extended.
 
The proposed Regulation forms part of the EU's package of measures on digital finance which are designed to support digital finance innovation while mitigating risks. The Commission has simultaneously published its EU Digital Finance Strategy, setting out its key priorities for the digital transformation of the EU financial sector over the coming years, proposed Regulations on markets in crypto-assets and digital operational resilience, and a Directive making corresponding amendments to certain related pieces of EU financial services legislation.
 
View the Commission's proposed Regulation.
 
View details of the EU's Digital Finance Strategy.
 
View details of the EU's proposed Regulation on crypto-assets.
 
View details of the Commission's consultation on an EU framework for crypto-assets.
 
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