Virtual currencies and Venture Capital: reality, economic function, nature and legal considerations about Bitcoin

Virtual currencies and Venture Capital: reality, economic function, nature and legal considerations about Bitcoin

Abstract:

Bitcoin, along with the rest of virtual currencies and the technology that develops them,
Blockchain, remain as a great unknown both for society, and for the business and financial sector in Spain.
Therefore, the present work tries to shed light on issues that mainly affect the reality of the phenomenon, its economic function and its legal nature, in an attempt to identify the intrinsic risks of virtual currencies, as well as their possible solutions within the framework of our legal system, in the absence of a European or Spanish regulation that regulates this booming sector.
Indeed, a number of European organisms, including the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority, have asked the European Commission and Parliament for a new amendment to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Directive in order to combat cybercrime, whose main measures are analyzed in the present paper.
Last but not less important, we analyze the taxation of Bitcoin and the rest of the criptocurrencies, in order to give answers on this matter to investors who bet on this sector, being useful for a sector that, in the short and medium term, presents as a sector of strong growth, with important opportunities in businesses such as investments in, startups through ICOs, companies of the virtual currencies sector and Blockchain development companies.

Keywords: Blockchain, Peer to Peer, Virtual Coins, Bitcoin, Virtual Gold, Risk Investing, Money Laundering.