Gibraltar Plans To Regulate Initial Coin Offerings

The government of Gibraltar provided new details about its plan to regulate initial coin offerings in a white paper published on Tuesday.

The paper points that securities don’t consider most tokens under Gibraltar or EU legislation. The ICOs and tokens classifications has troubled regulators, most notably China- to ban the blockchain use case entirely.

The paper notes, that tokens represent itself as an advance sale of products that entitle holders to access future networks or consume future services. Tokens are commercial products to say in other words, as the document claims.

The white paper also outlined an authorized sponsors regime, which would challenge every ICO issuer selling or distributing tokens in Gibraltar to appoint an individual to supervise the sale and ensure that it complies with regulations.

The release comes amid a long-running process of establishing regulatory boundaries for the use of blockchain tech within the U.K. crown dependency.

The Gibraltar Finance Centre and the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission officials told that the implementation of the sponsorship was part of their market-driven approach to ICO regulation.

In December they passed a blockchain-focused bill and laid the groundwork for an ICO bill when it published an advisory back in September.

The white paper also states that the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) will “authorise and supervise secondary token market operators” and will establish “a public register of such operators.” Additionally, the government will regulate token-related investment advice, including “generic advice,” “product-related advice” and “personal recommendations.”

The paper informs, that Gibraltar has plans to wrap up its blockchain-related regulatory push by the end of this year.

The draft bill will be ready by the end of this year. Draft regulations should be ready in May. And the last three regulations will be completed by the end of October.