Bitcoin fever lands in Mexico

By Moris Beracha.- 

.

Mexican senators have passed a bill that would regulate its financial sector, better known as the Fintech Law, and is pending confirmation in the Chamber of Deputies. The bill mainly seeks to regulate cryptocurrencies to deter money laundering or fraud.

The Bank of Mexico would strictly supervise by determining which virtual assets can be operated in the Mexican territory and every user would be obliged to verify that the money that is transferred to cryptocurrency does not have an illegal origin.

However, Bitcoin was designed to avoid operation influenced by central banks and governments. So, how could the Bank of Mexico monitor a currency that seeks to avoid regulations?

The bill does not interfere with the operations of the currency since the central bank does not recognize virtual assets as legal tender and does not support the coin value, as it does with the peso.

"[The law] portrays a standard line for the industry, which has a regulatory cost, but when referring to people's money, I think it's completely worth it," said Felipe Vallejo, Bitso's director of public policy and regulation, the Mexico-based bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Company, in an interview with El País, from Spain.

From his point of view, regulation keeps illicit operations at bay, such as money laundering and the use of cryptocurrencies as tax havens. "It is the worst way to launder money because it is 100% traceable, we can follow the money and know where it was," he said.