FMA Publishes Guidance on ICOs and Token Classification

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (Finanzmarkt-aufsicht, FMA) has recently published guidelines on how it views Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) from a financial services regulatory perspective. The guidelines are available on the FMA's FinTech Navigator under
https://www.fma.gv.at/en/cross-sectoral-topics/fintech-navigator/initial-coin-offering/ (currently German only) and intend to provide clarification on the FMA's view on "Crypto Assets", the term that the FMA uses for virtual currencies, coins and tokens.

What are ICOs?

The FMA confirms its understanding that ICOs typically

• are transactions that aim at financing companies or projects by employing Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), aka Blockchain technology through