On 9th January 2019 the European Securities and Markets
Authority (ESMA) published their guidance on "Initial Coin Offerings" and
"Crypto-Assets".
Below is a summary of the key takeaways from ESMA's
guidance.
The crypto-assets sector remains modest in size and does not
raise financial stability issues.
While ESMA sees the potential benefits of the underlying
technology, particularly with regards the tokenisation of assets,
it is concerned about the risks that crypto-assets pose to investor
protection and market integrity such as a fraud, cyber-attacks,
money laundering and market manipulation.
ESMA considers it important to take a technology-neutral
approach, to ensure that similar activities and assets are subject
to the same or very similar standards regardless of their form.
