Tighter regulation will boost cryptocurrencies by tackling ‘unholy’ activity, a finance law professor says

Tighter regulation will boost cryptocurrencies by tackling ‘unholy’ activity, a finance law professor says

Tighter regulation of cryptocurrencies will benefit the industry in the long run by tackling "unholy" criminal activity and making digital tokens more legitimate, a finance law professor has said. Yet, regulations may hit the value of cryptocurrencies such as in the short term, Professor Emilios Avgouleas, chair of international banking law at the University of Edinburgh, told Insider. "In the short run, regulation may be a bad thing, because market prices will go down," Avgouleas said. "But at the same time regulation will weed out unholy activity and will make these alternative means of payment even more acceptable for the mainstream user." He said he believes that, "in the long run, it will make the shift away from government money, to digital means of payment, permanent." Avgouleas, who is also a senior research fellow at crypto technology company IOHK, also said that central banks' plans to should legitimize cryptocurrencies in the eyes of consumers. Regulators around the world are increasingly paying attention to cryptocurrencies, which boomed in the early months of 2021 before . China has already begun a crackdown on bitcoin "mining" and payments. In the US, the new SEC chair Gary Gensler has spoken numerous times about how