I want to launch an ICO – Help!
It seems that 2017 will go down as the year of the ICO. Whilst
still not mainstream, the pool of people in the financial services
sector who have never heard of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, the
blockchain or an initial coin/token offering (ICO) is diminishing
quickly. For lawyers across multiple jurisdictions this has meant
scrambling to firstly try to understand this rapidly evolving
technology and secondly to work out how this technology fits within
laws and regulations that were for the most part, drafted without
thought or reference to the technology.
Here is what we currently see as the primary legal and
regulatory considerations for structuring an ICO through the Cayman
Islands. For context, we are viewing an ICO as an alternative
method of fund raising for a project on a blockchain network
through the acceptance of fiat or cryptocurrency in exchange for
tokens associated with the project; these tokens may themselves be
tradable.
