Responses from the centre
Syren Johnstone · Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2021
The evolution of the response of policy makers to the emergence of cryptoassets is presented as falling into four phases. Emergence: when cryptoassets first appeared on the radar of regulatory agencies. Counteraction: when regulatory agencies first began to impose their authority, typically to restrict practices. Traction: when most regulatory agencies and international bodies recognized that cryptoassets were here to stay in one form or another and began to recognise the desirability of regulating the industry at a more granular level. Point of no return: when regulations began to change, or proposals for change put forward, to accommodate cryptoassets. The fifth phase now getting underway may represent the ossification of a vector of thinking informed more by past experiences than by future possibilities, a topic that is returned to in Part 4.