The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released its long-awaited guidance on virtual assets, laying out standards that have the potential to reshape the crypto industry in the United States and around the world. The guidance addresses one of the most important challenges for the crypto industry: To convince regulators, legislators and the public that it does not facilitate money laundering.
The guidance is particularly concerned with the parts of the crypto industry that have recently brought about significant regulatory uncertainty including decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoins and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The guidance largely follows the emerging approach of U.S. regulators toward DeFi and stablecoins. In a positive note for the industry, the FATF is seemingly less aggressive toward NFTs and arguably calls for a presumption that NFTs are not virtual assets. The guidance, however, opens the door for members to regulate NFTs if they are used for “investment purposes.” We expect this guidance to add fuel to the NFT rally that has been underway for the majority of 2021.