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European Parliament, Blockchain Experts to Discuss ICO Regulation

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The European Parliament and blockchain experts gathered just recently to talk about potential regulations for Initial Coin Offerings (ICO).

At the recent EU event called “Regulating ICOs — Is the Crowdfunding Proposal what we were looking for?” the attendees took a close look at the potential complications that are rising up in the ICO industry.

Ashley Fox, a British Member of the European Parliament, identified three primary issues to consider at the meeting: challenges faced by ICOs in raising capital, the current regulatory approaches, and the future views of the industry.

In his testimony, Peter Kerstens, the chairman of the the European Commission’s Taskforce on Fintech, stressed the “dramatic increase” of ICOs’ volumes in 2018, despite the burgeoning reports of fake ICO projects. According to Kerstens, the rising figures mean that ICOs are “very interesting and promising vehicle instruments” for raising capital.

Kerstens emphasized the fact that while the ICO industry faces primarily similar problems with other conventional funding endeavors, it is still unlike in terms of the amount of money that can be raised. As a chief benefit, Kerstens remarked that while it is “extremely hard to raise millions of euros for a startup,” it is “not that hard” for an ICO project.

Tackling the issue of the main differences between ICOs and crowdfunding, Kerstens stressed the fact that ICO tokens are not “intermediated,” which means there is no third party between issuers and investors, posing the main subject of concern.

According to Kerstens, most of the aspects of ICOs “cannot be covered by crowdfunding proposals” because of the various differences between the industries as well as the inexact status of ICOs as financial instruments, among other reasons.

Turning to the question of ICO regulation, Aeternity’s global communications expert Julio Alejandro has offered a “very original contribution,” saying that there is no way to halt an ICO project from creation except by restricting crypto exchanges.

Alejandro said that “you can complain, you can cry, you can believe,” but “the only way that you can actually stop an ICO from creation is stopping an exchange,” adding:

“Whenever you want to stop the diffusion and relocation of information, how are you gonna stop it? Are you gonna ban USBs, the computers? What exact are you gonna ban? You’re banning knowledge.”

Alejandro then harped on the benefits of the ICO industry that are highly appreciated by the crypto community, such as an ICO’s anonymity, borderless character, mutual transparency, and ability to function without an intermediary.

Alejandro explained further that if any centralized organization “tries to regulate ICOs in some sense,” the industry would become “obsolete” from its technical perspective.

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