Although Colombian legislation states that the Colombian peso is the only legal tender with unlimited discharging effect, the use of cryptocurrencies has grown in the country since 2014 and, according to the central bank, "there has been a significant increase in transactions carried out with this type of assets, reaching annual growth rates of 47.1% between 2014 and 2017, when there were a total of 425,000 transactions”.

Given the above, the legislator has found it necessary to regulate transactions and other operations with cryptoassets, including cryptocurrencies and, half way through 2018, a Bill started going through Congress to regulate the use of virtual currencies, as discussed in Progreso 16.

The draft at the first Senate reading makes several changes to the text submitted last year:

• It includes cryptocurrencies in its definition of cryptoassets
• The authorization for legal persons to operate as traders will be given by the Financial Authority
• Traders must guarantee the protection by all possible means of the information
• The Government must regulate the requirements that trading establishments have to meet in order to obtain authorization to trade in cryptoassets.
• The Financial Authority will inspect, monitor and supervise the cryptoasset transactions made by institutions.