“Privatization of currency”… The words were released last October by Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, economist, deputy governor at the Banque de France. And for good reason: from now on, “more than half of payments are made via private infrastructures (cards, transfers, apps), while the central currency is declining”notes the institution. A phenomenon which risks being amplified with the boom in cryptoassets whose uses are penetrating traditional finance.
Thus, payment flows increasingly take place outside traditional monetary circuits. In 2024, the volume of global cryptocurrency transactions will reach more than $10.6 trillion, up more than 56% year-on-year, according to the American operator Stripe.
The urgency is to regulate these new exchanges. On the Old Continent, the European Commission set the tone: on December 4, it proposed the transfer of the authorization, monitoring and supervision of all cryptoasset service providers (PSCA) from the competent national authorities to the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma). What to regain control of?
