Ku Ju-chun, a Kuomintang legislator, questioned Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Thomas Huang during a meeting of the Finance Committee today. He inquired about the establishment of the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Industry Association tomorrow and the FSC’s requirement for VASPs to formulate self-regulatory norms, which must also be approved by the FSC. He questioned why these self-regulatory norms are not given more time for verification of their feasibility before rushing to promote special laws for regulation.
In response, Thomas Huang stated that the “Virtual Asset Special Law” is the fourth stage of the FSC’s oversight of virtual assets, with the earliest possible timeframe for submission to the Legislative Yuan being around the first half of next year. The legislative process will take a long time, but the government cannot pause in the fight against fraud. Therefore, the FSC is temporarily using the Anti-Money Laundering Act to regulate, while urging the industry association to quickly implement self-regulatory norms to fill this gap through various means.
Ku Ju-chun emphasized at the end of the questioning that virtual assets, as an emerging technology, have great development potential, and the government should encourage and support the industry’s development instead of focusing solely on regulation. He expressed his support for this approach and requested the FSC to give self-regulatory organizations and norms more time and space.
