Digital Assets Regulation: Insights from Jurisdictional Approaches

The report examines digital asset regulation in the EU, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, UAE, UK, and USA, focusing on AML/KYC, sandboxes, DeFi, and privacy. It highlights a global trend toward bespoke regulation to protect investors and maintain financial stability, while warning against regulatory fragmentation and 'regulation by enforcement'.

• The European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, effective for stablecoins from 30 June 2024 and fully by the end of 2024, aims to harmonize rules across member states, though it explicitly excludes non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and fully decentralized assets.
• Gibraltar has positioned itself as a blockchain hub through early DLT legislation and a tax framework that exempts dividends, capital gains, and income from digital asset transactions occurring outside the territory.
• Hong Kong employs a "same activity, same risks, same regulation" principle and has implemented a licensing regime for virtual asset trading platforms that includes mandatory knowledge assessments for retail clients.
• Japan's regulatory approach emphasizes the segregation of customer assets from exchange assets to reduce loss risks from insolvency or security breaches, a response to historical hacks like Mt. Gox and Coincheck.
• Singapore's Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has implemented strict consumer protections, including a ban on cryptocurrency advertisements in public areas and prohibitions on retail customers' margin trading.
• Switzerland utilizes a principle-based, technology-agnostic legal approach rather than stand-alone virtual asset regulation, allowing existing laws to be applied to digital assets.
• The United Arab Emirates exhibits regulatory fragmentation across its seven emirates, which creates compliance challenges and inconsistencies between onshore and offshore players despite the establishment of the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in Dubai.
• The United Kingdom distinguishes between digital securities, unbacked cryptoassets, and stablecoins, and is exploring a distinct property category for digital assets as suggested by the Law Commission in October 2023.
• The United States lacks a unified federal framework, leading to a 'regulation by enforcement' approach and a shift in cryptoasset-related fundraising away from the US, although individual states like Wyoming have passed progressive laws recognizing DAOs as legal entities.
• The report recommends a 'sandbox-first' approach for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) to allow for practical guideline development that accounts for the unique nature of decentralized protocols rather than using entity-centric legacy frameworks.

APA

World Economic Forum (2024). Digital Assets Regulation: Insights from Jurisdictional Approaches. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Digital_Assets_Regulation_2024.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Digital Assets Regulation: Insights from Jurisdictional Approaches. 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Digital_Assets_Regulation_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Digital Assets Regulation: Insights from Jurisdictional Approaches |date=October 2024 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Digital_Assets_Regulation_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2024digital, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Digital Assets Regulation: Insights from Jurisdictional Approaches}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2024}, month = oct, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Digital_Assets_Regulation_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }