Offerings of new cryptocurrencies, tokens and other virtual
assets (collectively, ICOs1) have
raised billions of dollars in recent years. Leading offshore
financial centres such as the British Virgin Islands
(BVI) have sought to become a major part of this
new capital raising phenomenon and there is now extensive use of
BVI companies as virtual asset issuers. While other offshore
jurisdictions have experienced similar interest, the relative
advantages of using a BVI company to create and offer new
cryptocurrencies have now made the BVI a leading ICO base.
The popularity of the BVI as a leading origination jurisdiction
for crypto and other virtual assets is not expected to be
diminished by the passage of the BVI's Virtual Assets Service
Providers Act, 2022 (the VASP Act, our note on
which can be found here) which came into force in February 2023.
While the VASP Act will regulate certain activities relating to
virtual assets when undertaken by a BVI entity, for the
