DLT Exchanges Under The Newly Enacted VFA Act

The Maltese Parliament has approved and enacted three Acts aimed at regulating Distributed Ledger Technology (hereafter referred to as "DLT") and the services ancillary thereto. One of the said Acts is the Virtual Financial Assets Act (hereafter referred to as the "VFA Act") which regulates, amongst other aspects, the issuing of ICO/Virtual Financials Assets, (hereafter referred to as a 'VFAs') in or from within Malta.

One of the central activities regulated by the VFA Act is the setting up and operation of a DLT exchange and a VFA exchange. The VFA Act defines a DLT exchange as any trading and, or exchange platform or facility on which any form of DLT asset may be transacted. A DLT asset is any virtual token, virtual financial asset, electronic money, or financial instrument that is intrinsically dependant on or utilises DLT. The term VFA exchange refers to any DLT exchange on which only VFAs may be transacted in accordance with the rules of the platform