- Costa Rican lawmaker proposes bill to regulate Bitcoin use.
- The law would allow banks to become crypto service providers.
- The bill doesn’t make Bitcoin legal tender.
Costa Rican legislator Johana Obando has proposed a new bill that seeks to regulate the crypto market in the nation by amending taxation laws. The bill was introduced with support from congressmen Luis Diego Vargas and Jorge Dengo. According to Obando’s tweet (translated), the bill will “promote the digital economy and the use of crypto assets.”
Dubbed the Cryptoassets Market Law (MECA), Bill number 23,415 would “give protection to individual virtual private property, to the self-custody of crypto-assets and to decentralization” without intervention from the country’s central bank, but in “perfect harmony” with it.
Further, the bill prevents the government from taxing cryptocurrency while it is in cold storage and exempts mined cryptocurrency from profit tax. However, the law would impose income taxes on cryptocurrency trading profits.
The bill also defines bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as virtual private currency and safeguards the ownership of such assets. With the proposal, lawmakers are hoping to draw in more capital by providing investors with added certainty and security in the crypto asset space.
Obando added that the bill also guarantees “banking interoperability of cryptocurrencies through public and private banks in the national territory,” implying that banks may serve as custody providers, wallet providers, and even cryptocurrency exchanges.
In addition, Obando also made it clear that the bill does not compel anybody to accept bitcoin as payment for debts or products; rather, it simply legalizes the act of doing so if the parties to a transaction agree upon utilizing it.
The development in Costa Rica should not be confused with that of El Salvador, which has accepted Bitcoin as a “Legal Tender”. Previously, Obando had doubled down on the bill’s intended purpose of boosting the Costa Rican crypto economy, stating: “This bill wants to propose Costa Rica as an investment center for crypto-related people and companies to see Costa Rica as a growth niche.”
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