This international special issue focuses on ICOs. Initial Coin Offerings are Distributed Ledger Technology fundraising operations involving the issuing of tokens.
Generally used by FinTechs, ICOs are of interest for many other sectors looking for new funding methods, such as the sports industry.
A recent and growing phenomenon, ICOs are for the time being not subject to a clear legal framework. However, ICOs — which are already a multi-billion dollar industry — raise many key legal issues (investor protection against fraud, money laundering risk, applicable taxation, etc.).
Faced with this global and transnational problem, national regulators have currently adopted various approaches: prohibition (China, South Korea), application of financial instruments rules (Canada, United States), classification (Switzerland), or proposal of specific legislation (France).
The Lexing® network members provide a snapshot of the current state of play worldwide.
The following countries have contributed to this issue: Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, India, Mexico, United Kingdom.