境外市场证券法视野下的代币发行监管——基于美国、新加坡、澳大利亚和中国香港地区的监管实践

Securities Regulation of Initial Coin Offering: Legal and Regulatory Perspective from the US,Singapore,Australia and Hong Kong SAR

首次代币发行(ICO)是金融科技在区块链领域的技术创新,允许企业通过发行数字代币的方式募集资金,根据代币附随权益的不同,投资者享有分红、投票、交易等多种权利。但这一市场同样蕴含欺诈发行的风险,在美国、新加坡、澳大利亚和我国香港地区等普通法系境外市场,证券监管机构对符合法定证券范畴的代币发行实施证券发行监管,监管的核心在于如何判断某一代币是不是证券,如股票、集体投资计划、债权乃至期权。这种监管能够起到支持金融科技发展、促进中小企业融资的效用。

Initial coin offering (ICO) is a way of financial technology innovation in the blockchain area. The mechanism allows enterprises to directly raise funds by sending cryptocurrencies to investors. Depending upon the special legal nature of tokens, ICO investors may enjoy the right to dividends, right to vote and right to buy or sell the tokens on secondary market. Yet the ICO market also contains fraud risks. In the United States, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong SAR, tokens issuing activities are generally regulated by domestic securities regulating authority under securities law. The key issue is how to decide whether a token can be classified as securities. Applying securities law to ICO is regarded as an efficient way of encouraging FinTech innovation and reducing the threshold of SMEs' fund raising.