Russian Ministry of Communications Specifies Proposed Demands for ICO Token Issuers
RegulationBit News Today2 min read
On the eve of a vote on legislation for digital currencies, a senior Ministry official laid out the government's demands for ICOs. ## Required disclosures
In a speech at TMP University, Oleg Ivanov, the Ministry's Deputy Director, outlined a series of mandatory disclosures for ICO issuers that will be required under a proposed bill going before the Duma this week.
Fundamentally, he said, any plan to sell tokens to the public would need to involve the following:
1. A "whitepaper" detailing the purpose of the offering. 2. A prospectus that lists the issuer's management, the offering price, and what proportion of the total tokens is being sold to the public. 3. A clear set of rules for how tokens will be distributed and exchanged in the future.
"The idea," said Ivanov, "is to have a regulatory framework that is strict enough to weed out scams and reduce risk, but flexible enough to allow for the maturity of the Russian market." ## Exemptions
The law would exempt token issuances by public companies, associated with securities, or that the Ministry itself deems to be of low risk.
This last exemption is sure to invite speculation by the various market participants about whether they might qualify, though Ivanov cautioned that the Ministry is unlikely to be helpful in such speculation.
"That decision is not going to up to them; that's our decision, and our decision alone," he said. ## What does this mean for Russia's ICOs?
The Ministry's announcement is the clearest signal yet that the Russian government is serious in its attempts to regulate the ICO market, a market that saw a number of offerings in Russia last year.
The latest proposed regulations resemble those that exist in other parts of the world, but as always, the devil is in the details.
ICOs will have to be minutely transparent, but potentially will be able to sell tokens to the public without the huge regulatory headwind that other securities face.
If the bill passes, ICOs will almost certainly become more transparent in Russia than they are now, but it may also make Russia an attractive jurisdiction for ICOs that like the idea of a clearly defined regulatory framework to operate under.
