The arrest of European Parliamentarian and cryptocurrency advocate Eva Kaili has been labeled a blow to the ecosystem by prominent blockchain industry participants.
Kaili, one of the 14 vice-presidents of the European Parliament, was arrested and charged on December 10 by Belgian prosecutors investigating allegations of corruption, money laundering and organized crime involving Qatar and senior policymakers in Europe.
Belgian police have reportedly seized €600,000 in cash as well as computers and mobile phones belonging to Kaili and three other people involved in the investigation. Kaili has been suspended from the European Parliament, where he has been a member since 2014.
Kaili has a vocal supporter of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in the European Parliament and has played an important role in providing direction for the governing body’s approach to the sector in recent years.
Erwin Voloder, senior policy fellow at the European Blockchain Association, told Cointelegraph that the allegations against Kaili should not be taken lightly but admitted that her arrest removes the voice needed to support the cryptocurrency space.
Voloder also highlighted Kaili’s role in leading the DLT Pilot Regime and the Blockchain 2016 resolution as well as her role as Shadow Rapporteur where she lobbied to raise blockchain technology during the InvestEU 2020 proposal.
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Kaili also took the reins on the individual drive to explore non-fungible tokens (NFTs) within the scope of the recently adopted European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Veloder said Kaili’s efforts to explore NFTs from a financial services and industrial application perspective are positive for the blockchain space.
Voloder then highlighted what he observed as ‘negative and uninformed objections’ to blockchain technology and Web3 in the German Bundestag in mid-December. Economists believe that this negative sentiment is spreading across the continent:
“I think we have the same problem at the EU level because that ideology can play an incredible role in driving how certain technologies or industries work, especially in today’s hyper-partisan climate.”
Voloder also asked what the macro events are in the cryptocurrency space including the implosion of FTX has played a role in branding the ecosystem as a ‘non-grata industry and guilty by association’.
Kaili’s expulsion from parliament leaves a gap for cryptocurrency supporters to be vocal and passionate to drive regulatory exploration. Voloder gave an optimistic view, referring to a recent workshop in the European parliament that saw industry experts and Commission officials present different views on the sector.
Voloder also speculated that the Directorate General of Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) could also take up the mantle of developing a framework for the NFT and Decentralized Finance sectors.
