In a Berlin speech last week, chief of the German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) Felix Hufeld, said blockchain technology is “revolutionary” and it’s applications could turn the entire financial sector “upside down,” CoinDesk reported Wednesday.
Hufeld made the remarks in a speech in which he described the regulator’s thinking on bitcoin and blockchain, the report said.
Recent hype concerning bitcoin price and initial coin offerings show blockchain’s ability to power distributed applications “could actually be revolutionary,” he said.
Furthermore, CoinDesk reported, the BaFin head said blockchain applications have promise in areas that lack “an effective control mechanisms or trustworthy institutions” such as in foreign trade or development aid.
In April, the report said, Hufeld said he does not want to “kill innovation” in blockchain, though his agency is beefing up efforts to regulate cryptocurrency trading over money-laundering concerns, according to a report at the time.
BaFin also issued new guidelines in February outlining how and when it would consider tokens issued during ICOs to be securities, saying it would take a case-by-case approach in determining the legal status of individual tokens, CoinDesk reported.