BAK through its secretariat confirmed receiving directives from the departmental committee on finance and national planning through the parliamentary assistant committee, directing it to prepare the first draft of virtual asset service providers’ bill for regulating cryptocurrency in Kenya.
According to business news , On Oct 31, BAK came face-to-face with the committee in discussions of digital assets regulation. An agenda for the deliberations will focus on devising cooperative model of interoperability that BAK may engage as it works in collaboration with the national government toward friendly policies for crypto-assets.
Members of BAK presented some key items that the committee should maintain a focus on for the development of an effective regulatory framework on crypto. This involved licensing, taxation, consumer protection, AMl/CTF, and establishment of a regulatory sandbox.
BAK emphasised that Kenya ranked position 19 globally on its cryptocurrency global adoption index as per analysis firm Chainalysis for July 2021-June 2022; which also had a value of approximately nineteen US dollars’ amount, and that
To this end, the parliamentary committee asked BAK to develop and implement a bill outlining a regulatory framework for digital assets in not more than two months.
For the first time, a parliamentary committee ordered an association or a stake holder group to draft a parliamentary bill that would be taken to parliament for adoption. As Allan Kakai, the legal and policy director of BAK explained; “This is very interesting because this has never happened to
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kenyan prop-tech startup; MyShamba Digital, Robert Muoka, also commented on this, arguing that this is a giant step forward in Kenya’s way towards leading innovation and digital finance. This paves the way for Kenya to become one
However, challenges lie ahead. An effective crypto regulation should be able to tackle such concerns by various regulators, such as the CBK, CMA, the Taxman, and other financial regulators.
Despite having some challenges, it was good that Kenya involved the industry representatives while coming up with regulations. If this was achieved, it would provide an exemplary framework that can be adopted by any country keen on creating a web3 space of integrity, security and safety.
