Morocco’s Central Bank Says Crypto-Regulating Draft Law Is Ready

Rabat – The draft law regulating the crypto market in Morocco is “ready” and will be presented to the various stakeholders within the market in the following days, the Governor of Morocco’s Central Bank, Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM), announced on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference following the BAM’s fourth annual meeting, Abdellatif Jouahiri explained that the Moroccan central bank will soon initiate a series of discussions with various players within the ecosystem prior to the implementation of the crypto-regulating document.

BAM will notably enter into talks with Morocco’s capital market and insurance watchdogs — the Moroccan Capital Markets Authority (AMMC) and the Insurance Supervisory Authority and Social Security (ACAPS), Jouahiri detailed.

“For cryptocurrencies, I can assure you that the project is ready,” the BAM chief said in a statement reported by Moroccan news outlet 360. “We worked with the World Bank and the consultant to make it happen. The different chapters are completed. Now we are engaged in the discussion with the different stakeholders. It is long, but necessary to allow everyone to adhere to this project.”

The draft legislation offers a definition for cryptocurrency that is adapted to the Moroccan context, the governor explained, adding that the piece of legislation does not aim to constrain innovation, but rather to protect individuals from risks associated with dealing in the highly-speculative market.

Trading in cryptocurrencies is currently outlawed in Morocco. And the country’s market watchdogs did not acknowledge the existence of digital assets until 2017, when the country announced a nationwide ban on trading and holding crypto.

But the ban did little to curb the appetite of consumers as crypto ownership continued on a steady rise, with Morocco becoming the fastest-growing crypto market in Northern Africa. The latest data suggest that the number of crypto holders in the country reached 1.5 million in 2022.

In June of this year, Morocco’s central bank, aware of the rising popularity of crypto, announced that it was in discussion with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) and other international partners to establish a regulatory framework for the crypto market.

The news of Morocco’s introducing such regulations comes at a time when the crypto world is experiencing a long bear market. Many experts have speculated that the crisis in the crypto market is an echo of the uncertainty prevailing in the conventional financial market.

The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency lost about 58% of its value in the second quarter of 2022. Additional shocks, including the dramatic fall of the Luna currency, caused $1.2 trillion to be wiped off the market.

But the underlying technology behind crypto “blockchain” seems to be thriving amid the alarming trends worldwide. Thanks to a rise in demand from a wide range of sectors, including the banking sector, the crypto blockchain has gone from $5.94 billion in 2021 to $10.13 billion in 2022.