Prerequisites for the development and features of the regulation of the digital financial assets

Abstract

Introduction. Digital financial assets are innovative tools that have received rapid development in the world relatively recently. The lack of a single, universal approach to determining the essence of digital financial assets is a peculiar manifestation of the evolution of the views of financial market regulators and international financial organizations towards the inner essence of these instruments. The rapid growth of the market of digital financial assets in the world increases the risks of uncontrolled movement of capital both within individual national economies and at the global level. The lack of oversight of this market by central banks or other regulatory authorities increases the opportunities for market participants to use crypto-assets to evade taxes or finance prohibited activities. At the same time, the trend of recent years is a gradual increase in interest in the cryptoasset market on the part of central banks, which, due to the strengthening of currency regulation, are trying to limit the development of the shadow economy. The purpose of the article is to justify the need for special approaches to their regulation on the part of central banks and the state, based on the definition of the essence of digital financial assets, the prerequisites for their emergence and the key factors that contribute to the growth of demand for these instruments in the world. Method (methodology). The work used methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization and statistical processing of data. The results. The essence, prerequisites for the development of digital financial assets are determined, and the factors contributing to the growth of demand for these instruments from the side of market participants are outlined. The evolution of approaches to the definition of digital assets from the side of international organizations and the potential influence of the crypto-asset market on the development of the shadow economy have been revealed. It was determined that since the market of digital assets has a global nature, and emission centers and centers of settlement operations are outside the influence of individual national regulators of the financial market, the consequence of applying strict approaches to its regulation at the level of a separate state may be the strengthening of the shadowing of the national economy.