July 4 (Cointime) - The Council of the European Union has approved a proposal to update its policies on wealth confiscation, with a focus on freezing and confiscating "unexplained assets".

June 28 (Cointime) - Negotiators from the European Union have reached an agreement on the Data Act, which has caused concern in the Web3 sector due to its potentially fatal impact on decentralized transactions governed by immutable code. The legislation aims to give people more rights over any data produced about them, but the scope of the provisions on smart contracts was initially vague. While the text on smart contracts has been tightened up from the original plans, the final agreed version of the law still refers to "smart contracts," which could prove unworkable for public, permissionless blockchains. The European Parliament and Council must vote in favor of the text agreed by negotiators for the Data Act to pass into law.

June 27 (Cointime) - The European Union has reached a political agreement on new bank-capital legislation, which includes rules for crypto assets. The agreement aims to keep unbacked crypto out of the traditional financial system.

June 27 (Cointime) - The European Union's new crypto regulations, Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), will take effect on June 29th, with certain regulations on stablecoins being enforced in a year's time, and the rest by the end of 2024.

June 27 (Cointime) - The European Union has reached a political agreement on new bank-capital legislation that includes rules to prevent unbacked cryptocurrencies from entering the traditional financial system. The deal was announced by the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs committee after a meeting with representatives from the European Parliament, national governments, and the European Commission. The legislation also includes controversial changes to how banks assess the risk of corporate and home loans, and must now be voted on by member states in the EU's Council and by lawmakers to become law. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is currently finalizing a global crypto banking rulebook that assigns a maximum risk weight of 1,250% to free-floating cryptocurrencies, but the EU appears to be in favor of a compromise that would soften the strict stance for regulated stablecoins.

June 21 (Cointime) - A recent study by Stanford University has found that none of the current large language models used in AI tools, such as OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Bard, comply with the European Union's (EU) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act.

June 20 (Cointime) - Consumer protection groups in the European Union (EU) have called for investigations into the artificial intelligence (AI) models used in popular chatbots, citing concerns about generative AI. The groups have urged national authorities to assess the risks and vulnerabilities to consumers posed by AI systems such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, prior to the introduction of the EU's AI regulation.

June 15 (Cointime) - The European Union is set to reveal plans for a digital euro that would require the European Central Bank to establish limits on its use in order to ensure financial stability. A draft proposal obtained by Bloomberg states that the ECB would need to determine the necessary instruments to guarantee financial stability.

June 14 (Cointime) - The European Union has implemented the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations, which offer guidance for the cryptocurrency market and service providers. MiCA defines crypto assets and sets standards for crypto asset service providers and issuers. While it does not cover nonfungible tokens or central bank-issued digital assets, MiCA could make Europe a more dominant crypto hotspot. The MiCA regulatory framework has been published in the official journal of the EU, providing clear timelines for crypto businesses to comply with its requirements. While MiCA may influence other countries to adopt similar approaches, Hong Kong has the potential to become a larger crypto hub than Europe.

Google's generative AI service, Bard, has reportedly been blocked from launching in the European Union by the Irish Data Protection Commission due to privacy concerns. Despite launching in the US, UK, and 178 other countries earlier this year, Google has been unable to bring Bard to the EU.