Best countries for initial coin offerings ICO

What’s this booklet about?

In the last five years, there has been a steady increase in the number of successfully launched initial coin offerings (ICOs). The term “initial coin offering” refers a process of distributing future functional units of cryptocurrency in exchange for fiat money or other cryptocurrencies. ICOs allow startups to easily raise capital.

An important advantage of ICOs is that they are unregulated in many countries. Hence, companies launching ICOs may not need to incur compliance costs associated with regulated ways of raising capital (e.g., initial public offerings).

The choice of a proper jurisdiction is of utmost importance for the success of an ICO. While some jurisdictions (e.g., South Korea and China) prohibit all ICOs, others (e.g., Gibraltar) issued detailed legal frameworks regulating ICOs. A third group of jurisdictions have not regulated ICOs (Costa Rica,  Cyprus,Georgia, the Cayman Islands, and Chile). Although such jurisdictions may not have rules regarding ICOs, many of them issued clarificatory notes and warnings with regard to ICOs.

The purpose of this booklet is to (i) list five countries which, in our opinion, are particularly attractive for the launch of ICOs and (ii) explain the reason for their attractiveness. Those countries are: Switzerland (Section 2), Gibraltar (Section 3), Singapore (Section 4), Hong Kong (Section 5), and Germany(Section 6). At the end of this article, we provide concluding remarks (Section 7).

By reading this book, you will learn:

1. INTRODUCTION
2. SWITZERLAND

• 2.1 The Swiss ICO-related legal framework
• 2.2 Other factors making Switzerland attractive for ICOs

3. GIBRALTAR 

• 3.1 The DLT framework 
• 3.2 Token Regulations 

4. SINGAPORE 

• 4.1 Securities legislation 
• 4.2 Payment services legislation 

5. HONG KONG 

• 5.1 Typology of digital tokens in Hong Kong 
• 5.2 SFC’s enforcement activities 

6. GERMANY 

• 6.1 BaFin’s opinion 
• 6.2 The Berlin Court of Appeal’s judgment 

7. CONCLUSION