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New Zealand still isn’t ready to commit to crypto regulation, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand said Friday. It did, however, call for “increased vigilance” following a submission period that closed in April. The Reserve Bank received 50 submissions — from Ripple to Grant Thornton. Following a period of submissions, the Bank published a paper to further detail its thinking on digital assets — including central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). According to the Atlantic Council’s stablecoin tracker, roughly 130 countries are exploring a CBDC. In 2021, the bank announced that it was exploring a CBDC, but the paper reiterates that the bank has “not made any decision about the need for one.”  On the topic of regulation, the Bank noted that submitters had suggested that crypto startups be allowed to “grow into regulation.” This could allow for “regulatory sandboxes” and a “tiered compliance approach .” The suggestions, though, don’t mean that New Zealand will pursue such a regulatory str...

Given the difficulties with classification, BaFin highlights the freedom of nonfungible tokens from licensing demands. Federal Financial Supervisory Authority of Germany (BaFin) is not ready to classify nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as securities yet. The Agency suggests classifying the NFTs on a case- by -case basis.  On March 8, the BaFin journal published an explanatory note considering NFTs and their legal classification. At this point, the regulators don’t see how NFTs correspond to the criteria of tradeability and standardization, which define securities. However, in the future, BaFin may consider NFTs as securities. For example, if 1,000 NFTs embody the same repayment and interest claims. According to another reservation, if an NFT contains documentation of exploitation rights or ownership, such as a promise of distribution, it could be considered an investment. The agency recommends a case-by-case approach to the classification of NFTs when it comes to their status as a “crypt...