Bitcoin should be regulated by EU, claims finance firm

Circle, a bitcoin financing company that provides wallet functions for online use, as well as new tools for utilising the digital currency, has called on the EU to offer regulatory support for bitcoin, suggesting that the continued growth of its acceptance is an indicator that it could very well be the start of a financial revolution that governments should get behind.

Jeremy Allaire is the current CEO of Circle and while you shouldn't be surprised that the head of a bitcoin company wants bitcoin to grow, he believes it's going to happen anyway, but that clear regulation from the UK would help it to do so. As it stands, there's little in the way of consumer protection, but he wants that to change.

“One of the challenges is that without clear guidance from the EU, from the UK, it will limit industry development,” he said to Reuters. “Unless they have a clear view of where does this (bitcoin) fit, how do we know what the rules are?”

Bitcoin is now accepted in many different outlets across the internet, helping improve its legitimacy

Citing the recent sale by the US government of some 30,000 bitcoins originally seized in the Silkroad raid of 2013, he suggested that government were starting to see the currency as a force for good. While actions like this he says, should lead to less scams and hacks due to increased legitimacy, he really believes that payments should be regulated under EU law, just like other online payment services like Paypal.

However detractors might suggest that the very nature of the currency makes it impossible to regulate in such a way and that this would undermine its free and open nature.

KitGuru Says: What do you guys think? Would regulation make bitcoin less of the open platform it is now? And is it even possible in a traditional sense?

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