Bitcoin regulation.

Bruno Le Marie, France's Minister of the Economy said "We want a stable economy" as he appointed Jean-Pierre Landau to examine Bitcoin regulation. Landau is an open critic of Bitcoin who called Bitcoin "The tulips of modern times" four years ago. He has a past both on Bank of France and the IMF.

Minister Le Marie warned about "speculative risk" and "the possibility of misappropriation" Landau's task is to find ways for authorities to stop cryptocoins being used for "tax evasion, money laundering and criminal and terrorist activity financing".

Le Marie has proposed that Bitcoin regulation should be discussed in March at G20 in Argentina. He refers to "a risk of speculation" and states that "with all the other G20 countries we can regulate bitcoin"

Bitcoin regulation and thereby blockchain and exhange regulation seems to be a theme of 2018. I think that the privacy altcoins will be hardest hit.

Probably France will seek EU regulations that force you to hold and trade cryptocurrencies on registered exchanges only, with obligatory identification? This also implies a more draconian control of the internet and what kind of node you are allowed to run. France has very restrictive cryptography laws. Export or import of cryptographic tools must be registered and cryptography may ony be used for authentication and integrity purposes.