A set of draft rules has been published by The Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for regulating Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) for public review, in accordance with an official statement August 2.
Any company registered in the Philippines expecting to do an ICO, or any ICO selling tokens to Filipinos, must apply an “initial assessment request” to the Commission to validate if their token is a security or not, according to the Memorandum Circular of the SEC.
The regulator stipulates that those companies issuing ICO should apply their initial assessment request not less than 90 days before starting their pre-sale period. Once they complete their request submission, the SEC will review the request within 20 days – or could be extended up to 40 days –– and provide a written report on if an ICO token is recognized a security or not.
ICOs may be released from registration with the SEC if they are going to apportion tokens among no more than 20 individuals or a limited number of institutional investors, suggested the agency.
Furthermore, those “inviting banks, investment houses, the investing public and other interested parties” could have give their feedbacks to the proposed regulations no later than August 31, the SEC specifies.
Stated in memorandum, the regulatory framework for ICOs proposes to resist deceptive ICO projects and defend investors from scams. The SEC has regularly proposed adjusting crypto assets under the Philippines securities laws subsequent to first proposing to do at the end of 2017.
At the beginning of April, 2018 the SEC also proposed considering cloud mining contracts securities, due to the process via “investment contracts,” which could be additionally traded, are being run by investors in the mining capacity of remote data centers.
Recently, the Philippines government has taken a positive stance on the crypto space. Crypto regulations were formulated by the authority dubbed Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). A blockchain and fintech hub was established in CEZA in late April in an attempt to create an Asian “Silicon Valley.”
In July, three cryptocurrency exchanges were granted granted provisional licenses to in the zone by the CEZA, expecting to appeal to $3 million investment right after the issuance.
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