European deputies forcing crypto industry to leave

European deputies decided they didn’t want the crypto industry.

European crypto industry decided it did not want the EU.

⚖️ This week’s outrageous RTF (regulation on transfers of funds) vote that would effectively oblige crypto service providers to gather detailed data on every single crypto transaction, including to/from non-custodial wallets, was the last straw for the EU crypto industry.

For many years European crypto players have been hoping that their countries’ and the Union’s legislators will finally educate themselves on crypto and realize its tremendous potential, instead of cultivating FUDs. The deputies did not rise to the challenge, and their desire to fit the inherently independent and decentralized crypto into the old-world centralized and highly inefficient channels speaks volumes about their incompetence to take decisions on the future of the industry.

In France the situation is particularly disheartening. For many years its banks have been closing the accounts of crypto-related companies without any explanation, which pushed many entrepreneurs to search for banking solutions in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein or Switzerland.

With the new crypto RTF many would find themselves incapable of compliance, and with the general anti-crypto mood of the EU and French regulators there’s virtually no hope for a reasonable law in the near future; so now even the most patriotic entrepreneurs feel they are being pushed out of the country. And many leave.

After the EU Parliament’s vote some eminent French crypto players announced they were leaving the country. Among them Sébastien Gouspillou, the head of green mining firm BigBlock Datacenter, who will now in all likelihood continue its $200M fundraising in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel. Not in France ?

Many more startups and professionals are now packing their things for Switzerland, Great Britain or more remote destinations in Asia and the Americas.

One of the reasons the rich and beautiful and talented France missed out on the Internet boom in the 90s was its clinging to the French videotex online service called Minitel. Despite Minitel’s obvious inferiority to the Internet technology, the authorities did everything they could to stifle the latter to the benefit of the former.

We all know how it ended, and we all know where the headquarters of the GAFAM are. Not in France ?

History repeating with crypto?