Shmuel Hauser, the chairman of the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), has said will propose regulation to ban companies based on Bitcoin (Bitcoin) and other digital currencies from trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), Reuters reported.
“If we have a company that their main business is digital currencies we would not allow it. If already listed, its trading will be suspended,” Hauser told the Calcalist business conference.
If approved, it would be subject to a public hearing and then the TASE bylaws would need to be amended.
“We feel that the prices of Bitcoin behave like bubbles and we don’t want investors to be subject to that volatility and uncertainty,” Hauser said. “There is an importance to signal to the market where things are... Investors should know where we stand.”
The announcement comes amid reports on plans by the Israeli government to issue a digital currency. A finance official said “the digital shekel would record every transaction by mobile phone and make it more difficult to evade taxation.”