Central Bank Clarifies Rules On Ability Of Irish Funds To Gain Exposure To Digital Assets

On 4 April 2023, the Central Bank of Ireland (Central Bank) published a revised edition of its Q&A on AIFMD and its Q&A on UCITS in which it set out its revised position on the ability of Irish domiciled funds to gain exposure to "digital assets", often referred to as "crypto assets".

It is worth noting at the outset that the Central Bank has made clear that for the purposes of its guidance, "digital assets" refers to digital assets which are based on an "intangible or non-traditional underlying" and does not include investments which are tokenised traditional assets whose value is linked to an underlying traditional asset or pool of assets. Digital assets falling within the scope of the Central Bank rules will therefore for example include investments in crypto currencies or NFTs¹.