State regulators of the world continue to express ICO skepticism

The FCA, or the Financial Conduct Authority in Great Britain, has recently issued a warning concerning initial coin offerings, or ICOs, a process when a cryptocurrency company states its intention to create something and issues digital tokens everybody who wants to invest in their project can buy and spend on various bonuses. The FCA officials believe that this mechanism can be used as a disguise for a fraud scheme and often does not have pre-installed consumer protection tools. The FCA concludes its statement by telling that the UK citizens must be vigilant when dealing with ICOs and, should they ever find a fraud, it would be the best decision to report it to the FCA.

Simultaneously in a different part of the world, Middle East, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) issues a statement with its own views on initial coin offerings. It considers ICO to be a high-risk investment and warns that in every case, the danger can be unique. CoinDesk notes that they didn’t specify if they consider ICO tokens securities, like the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States.

And, lastly, Namibia, even further in the south if compared to the UK and Dubai, has decided that bitcoin purchases are illegal because there is no mention of cryptocurrencies in the old 1966 legislative act. No legal premises for bitcoin almost certainly means no legal premises for ICOs, as the government of Namibia can easily beat the ICOs with the same argument – tokens do not exist in the law, therefore they are not legal.

We have already seen the opinion of big and influential states on cryptocurrency and ICOs: the United States, Canada, China, Russia. This list will be expanded as more and more governments around the world decide what to do with these digital financial innovations.