Legal challenges of digital assets – Normative frameworks and development perspectives

Digital assets have become a significant and indispensable part of the modern financial system and have brought innovations in the areas of payments, investments, and financial intermediation. However, their expansion brings numerous regulatory challenges, particularly with regard to preventing money laundering, user identification, the legal treatment of decentralized finance, and privacy protection. Approaches to the regulation of digital assets vary significantly among jurisdictions – while some countries introduce comprehensive legislation, others apply restrictive or fragmented policies. Serbia has positioned itself as one of the first countries in the region to adopt a specific Law on Digital Assets (2020), thereby establishing a regulatory framework for this market. This paper analyses the legal challenges of digital assets, exploring national and international regulatory approaches, including the European Union’s MiCA Regulation. It also examines the need to strike a balance between fostering innovation and ensuring the stability of the financial system. The key finding is that continuous international cooperation and a flexible regulatory framework are necessary to enable the sustainable development of digital assets and the technologies that support them.