Uruguay government is looking to regulate crypto assets such as cryptocurrencies, and a new cryptocurrency bill project was introduced by the executive power of the Parliament of Uruguay. The objective of the bill is to provide clarification on how cryptocurrency asset-related activities will be regulated. The proposed bill is the first bill to address the gray areas in which cryptocurrency exchanges and virtual asset service providers operate in the country. The bill intends to modify the organic charter of the Central Bank of Uruguay and introduces the Superintendence of Financial Services, part of the central bank, as the main overseer of the activities of virtual asset service providers.
The proposed bill establishes that companies that facilitate the exchange of virtual assets, and third parties that lend financial services related to the offer or sale of a virtual asset, will be considered part of this class. However, the bill introduces another class of organization called a “virtual asset issuer,” defining it as a platform that issues any type of virtual asset included within the regulatory perimeter or requests admission of regulated virtual assets on a virtual asset trading platform. As the central bank of the country will be the main crypto watchdog, the proposed bill said that the newly incorporated entities that operate with virtual assets will be subject to the supervision and control powers of the Central Bank of Uruguay.