Israel Halt Crypto-Exchange Regulation Law Roll-Out

Israeli authorities almost issued new cryptocurrency exchange regulation laws on the 1^st of June which would see new limits placed onto the operation of cryptocurrency exchanges in the country. However, in a strange move, Israel had since postponed the roll-out of the laws, with reports suggesting this postponement could be in place for at least another four months. According to Cryptovest, Jacob Enoch, Co-Chair of Israel Bar Association (IBA) has said:

"The reason for the delay is the lack of a prohibition on money laundering, which implies that these companies have not been mindful of, and have not acted to prevent, money laundering to this day. This is something that is not acceptable to say about an entire market.”

Moreover:

“I am concerned that instability in such important decisions could lead to stagnation in existing fintech companies and delay the start of new companies with innovative financial solutions. Even worse, this creates antagonism among fintech investors in Israel, which could snowball into a loss of trust. One can only hope, that such inevitable antagonism among fintech investors will not snowball into a potential loss of trust.”

You can see the full report by Cryptovest for yourself, here- https://cryptovest.com/news/israel-delays-crypto-exchange-regulations-by-4-months/ What this looks like, is Enoch is concerned about the lack of regulation that has initially gone into the regulation so to speak, with a key focus on money laundering as something that seems to have been, ignored by policy makers. Interestingly, we must consider why the authorities have decided to delay the entire thing, instead of just deciding to add new laws on. Wouldn’t it be more economical to stand up, admit your mistake and say; “Oh, by the way, we forgot to add this legislation, therefore expect it to come into play in a few weeks’ time.” Clearly, I’m not a legal expert or a policy maker, but that method makes more sense to me? The important thing in all this is that regulation is going to come to the fore at some point, which means Israel are clearly onboard with cryptocurrency activity flourishing in the country and thus, we know that within this, investors will still be able to invest and trade within Israel. As it stands at the moment though, we’re just not so sure on what they can and can’t do at the minute, nor are we really familiar with what they can and can’t do in the future.