It could have been significantly worse. In the words of Jakob von Weizsacker MEP, who drafted the resolution, and whom I had the pleasure of speaking with last month:
To avoid stifling innovation, we favour precautionary monitoring rather than pre-emptive regulation. But IT innovations can spread very rapidly and become systemic.
That’s why we call on the Commission to establish a taskforce to actively monitor how the technology evolves and to make timely proposals for specific regulation if, and when, the need arises.
This is a far better approach than the heavy-handed “bitlicense” approach taken in New York. Let us hope that the blockchain event organised by The Cobden Centre in the European Parliament last month had some beneficial effects (see here for the full report of that event: https://www.cobdencentre.org/2016/04/the-cobden-centre-organises-first-digital-currencies-conference-in-any-parliament-worldwide/.)
More can be read at CityAM here: http://www.cityam.com/242051/members-of-the-european-parliament-just-voted-to-introduce-a-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-regulator
