USA – Initial Coin Offerings Considered Securities

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The Securities and Exchange (SEC) Chairman Walter Joseph Clayton III has commented about the matter in New York. He said that Initial Coin Offerings are equal to securities, meaning that they will have to follow the same regulations.

Why are ICOs Considered Securities?

In a speech to a group of attorneys in New York, he has commented that ICOs are equal to securities. “I have yet to see an ICO that does not have a sufficient number of hallmarks of a security,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

It is not the first time that a member of the government gives a comment about Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies or ICOs. Some days ago, Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary said that are analysing Bitcoin ‘very carefully’. “Bitcoin is something that we are looking at very carefully and we will continue to look at,” told Mr. Steven Mnuchin.

“When you depart from the Bitcoin or Ethereum, and you get into the tokens, the hallmarks become pretty clear”, kept saying Mr Clayton to the Journal.

In this way, the United States seems to be preparing to launch regulations on the ICO market. In the case that ICOs would be considered as securities, the same regulations would apply to the token sales. If the intention is to take Initial Coin Offerings in a different way, they will have other regulations.

Other Countries Have Regulated the ICO and Cryptocurrency Market

But the United States are not the first country that wants to introduce regulations to ICOs. China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, South Korea and others have some kind of regulations around the cryptocurrency world.

For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has expressed his concerns about ICOs and the illegal activities around them. As a response to it, he has decided to launch the CryptoRuble, the Russian virtual currency.

Kazakhstan, has imitated Russia. Has decided to impose strict controls on the cryptocurrency market. For example, Kazakhstan’s Central Bank has proposed to the government to ban mining factories from the country. At the same time, restrictions on exchanges are being analysed.

South Korea has banned ICOs from operation on its territory, it is considered an illegal activity and could be strongly penalized.

China, the other big player in the world of the cryptocurrencies, has implemented strong regulations on the market. China has decided to ban Bitcoin exchanges and it is analysing the possibility of issuing its own cryptocurrency.

About the United States market, Bitfinex, one of the most important cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, left the American country. CoinStaker has previously reported about this situation. “Bitfinex team expressed that there are unnecessary state barriers in addition to federal policies.”

The company also believes that the regulatory framework will become even worse. “We anticipate the regulatory landscape to become even more challenging in the future,” described the company in a statement.

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