“Around the world, we see that governments are increasingly interested in regulating cryptocurrency,” said Simon Sharwood, the APAC Editor of UK-based enterprise news publication The Register. He was speaking to Orchid’s Derek Silva on this week’s episode of the Priv8 Podcast about global trends in cryptocurrency regulations.

“I believe that they’re mostly interested in regulating it from a consumer protection point of view, although the global market has figured out that most cryptocurrencies are a very poor means of exchange for day-to-day purchases.

“But the governments of some countries – including India and Thailand – have both recently essentially said that they want to be able to tax transactions, and make sure that crypto isn’t being used as a tool for money laundering.”

Simon pointed out that as time goes on, certain patterns are forming in the crypto regulation landscape. “For example, do I see mining bans? No. Do I see governments increasingly discouraging cryptocurrency transactions? Yes.”

“When cryptocurrency is considered as an asset – or anything akin to a security – governments are allowing people are to trade them. But they want to make sure that those trades are subject to the same rules as trades in any other asset class.

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“It’s important to note that regulated markets tend to do better,” he continued. But on the other hand, the nature of cryptocurrency can be contradictory to certain kinds of regulation. “Let’s look at China, as an example,” Simon said.

“The thing with China is that it does not like to leave anything unregulated. And similarly, my understanding of China is that the Chinese Communist Party does not share its power with anyone. Therefore, the prospect of peer-to-peer communities – let alone peer-to-peer currencies – runs counter to the way that China operates.

“Still, I think there's something that people are missing when it comes to some of China's previous cryptocurrency regulations,” Simon said. “For instance, take the country’s ban on Bitcoin mining.”

Simon said that the reasons behind the ban may not have been as clear cut as they were explained by much of the media. “The ban could have partially been due to the fact that the country is running an enormous data center migration project. There are plans to create ten new data center precincts in the west of the country, where there is abundant hydroelectricity and the climate is favorable for sensitive electronic equipment.”

Check out the entire conversation with Simon. And don't forget to subscribe to Priv8 on your favorite streaming service.