Cointelegraph reports that the Virtual Financial Services Act, which also covers virtual tokens, virtual financial assets, and electronic money, has been amended to include NFTs.
According to Cointelegraph, the Malta Financial Services Authority (FSA) is now evaluating petitions to change the “regulatory treatment” of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) under its framework for virtual financial assets.
The inclusion of the Virtual Financial Services Act, which also covers virtual tokens, virtual financial assets, and electronic money, among others, based on distributed ledger technology, has been made possible by the latest legal framework, according to Cointelegraph (DLT). Due to their alleged uniqueness and non-fungibility, it is thought that MFSA created the proposal to assure NFT’s removal from the virtual financial assets framework.
The MFSA warned that the inclusion of such assets under the purview of the VFA framework “may be at odds with the spirit of the Act, which intended to regulate investment-type services delivered in connection to VFAs falling beyond the purview of current traditional financial service asset categories.”
According to information provided by Cointelegraph, the regulatory body is seeking input from stakeholders prior to formally implementing the new adjustments to the comments. Malta is thought to have led Southern Europe in terms of cryptocurrency rules as of November 2022.
In addition, Cointelegraph pointed out that three pieces of legislation were passed by the Maltese Parliament in 2018 to provide a legal framework for virtual currencies. Four distinct forms of digital assets, including electronic money, financial instruments, virtual (utility) tokens, and virtual financial assets, are reportedly recognized under the nation’s financial regulatory system.
