The nature and sources of international variation in formal institutions related to initial coin offerings:preliminary findings and a research agenda

As prior researchers have suggested,a firm’s success in an international market depends on how well its strategy fits the nonmarket environment,such as formal institutions.This paper examines the determinants of formal institutions around new areas of economic activities.Specifically,we propose a framework for understanding how the quality of formal institutions in promoting entrepreneurship drives the focus of such institutions concerning initial coin offering(ICO),which is emerging as a popular fundraising method.The paper uses inductive analysis to examine how nonmarket factors—such as a jurisdiction’s tax haven nature,regulators’perceptions of ICOs as threats to national or political interests,and trade and industry associations—might moderate the relationship between the quality of institutions and the focus of such institutions regarding ICOs.One of this study’s key findings is that an economy’s quality of entrepreneurship-related institutions,perceived threats to national/political interests,and tax haven nature lead to different policy orientations.Consequently,regulators assign different importance when promoting crypto-entrepreneurship and dealing with associated risks.Regulators focusing mainly on promoting crypto-ventures have taken measures to enrich the blockchain ecosystem and provided tax and non-tax incentives to attract such ventures.Regulators focusing mainly on dealing with crypto-venture risks rely on a regulatory sandbox and close regulatory monitoring of such ventures.

Initial coin offerings(ICOs):Why do they succeed?

Recent literature has addressed initial coin offering(ICO)projects,which are an innovative form of venture financing through cryptocurrencies using blockchain technology.Many features of ICOs remain unexplored,leaving much room for additional research,including the success factors of ICO projects.We investigate the success of ICO projects,with our main purpose being to identify factors that influence a project’s outcome.Following a literature review,from which several potential variables were collected,we used a database comprising 428 ICO projects in the banking/financial sector to regress several econometric models.We confirmed the impacts of several variables and obtained particularly valuable results concerning project and campaign variables.We confirmed the importance of a well-structured and informative white-paper.The proximity to certain markets with high availability of financial and human capital is also an important determinant of the success of an ICO.We also confirm the strong dependency on cryptocurrency and the impact of cryptocurrency valuations on the success of a project.Furthermore,we confirm the importance of social media in ICO projects,as well as the importance of human capital characteristics.Our research contributes to the ICO literature by capturing most of the success factors previously identified and testing their impacts based on a large database.The current research contributes to the building of systems theory and signaling theory by adapting their frameworks to the ICO environment.Our results are also important for regulators,as ICOs are mainly unregulated and have vast future potential,and for investors,who can benefit from our analysis and use it in their due diligence.

社交网络环境下ICO舆情的传播与控制模型

为有效地控制ICO(initial coin offering)舆情的传播,分析社交网络环境下ICO项目发展及其舆情特征,通过引入外部舆论场对ICO舆情传播的影响,提出小世界网络中ICO舆情的传播与控制模型。进行实验分析,实验结果表明,ICO舆情传播具有高度的非线性特征,传播迅速。在舆情爆发初期,通过技术手段控制传播范围、ICO舆情流量、ICO对外交易和外来有兴趣传播舆情者的引入,可以防止ICO舆情以迅猛的态势扩散,达到较好的控制效果。

“去中心化”金融工具的法律风险控制——对比特币和首次代币发行(ICO)的行政监管与经济刑法调整

近年来,以比特币为代表的"去中心化"金融工具依托区块链技术逐渐兴起。但现有的中心化的监管体系对于"去中心化"金融工具的风险控制还存在较多盲区。同样基于区块链技术的首次代币发行也因此造成了混乱局面。在简要介绍区块链技术基础上,厘清比特币和首次代币发行的风险,揭示比特币的法律属性,指出首次代币发行在包含比特币等数字支付手段的风险之外放大传统融资风险,提出行政监管模式和经济刑法规范的调整策略。

ICO行业自省：市场理性与监管理性

ICO即首次虚拟货币发行,在我国已被明令禁止。但“一刀切”的监管模式,并未从根本上解决ICO风险问题,反而限制了区块链行业的创新发展。如今ICO市场尴尬局面的出现,并不违背我国一贯的市场与监管互动规律,究其原因还是其自身在进入我国市场时未完成本土化,导致“外来物种入侵”效应。本文在论证区块链ICO行业自律意义的基础上,利用行业组织在市场和监管两个方面的双重理性,提出各方共赢的解决思路。

Imbalanced Problem in Initial Coin Offering Fraud Detection

ICOs,the initial coin offerings,are a common way to raise funds for blockchain projects.Fraudulent ICO projects not only cause financial losses to investors but also cause a loss of confidence in the blockchain capital market.Whitepapers are usually the most important information source,so it is feasible to identify fraudulent ICO programs by analyzing whitepapers.However,the fraud samples are difficult to collect,and the classes are imbalanced.In this study,we attempt to solve this problem by extracting linguistic features from the ICO whitepaper and using a variety of cutting-edge machine learning and deep learning algorithms to train the prediction model and attempt to resample,modify the weight and modify the loss function for imbalanced samples.Our optimal method achieves an AUC of 0.94 and an accuracy of 82%,which is better than other traditional standard methods,and the results provide important implications for ICO fraud detection.

数字资产发行与交易的穿透式分层监管

基于区块链的数字资产代表不同的经济本质,需要分类分层监管。日本修法扩大数字资产交易平台监管的范围,强化投资者保护,分类监管ICO。依照集合投资计划的定义判断,属于证券的ICO代币根据其流动性适用有差别的监管,对不属于证券的数字资产亦规范金融衍生品和现货交易的适当性。日本对数字资产设置类型化的规定,其依据是数字资产的经济本质,认为功能型代币不属于证券。相比之下,我国管制型金融监管存在较多盲区,建议扩张我国证券法对证券的定义,划定金融衍生品基础资产的范围,填补监管漏洞,以应对数字资产和其他金融科技创新。

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

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。

代币发行融资研究——基于企业生存时间的视角

本文以中国境内所有的代币发行融资项目为研究对象,研究代币发行融资对初创企业生存时间的影响。研究发现,相比股权融资,代币发行融资会显著缩短初创企业的寿命。这一结论在增加控制变量和使用工具变量等方法后依然稳健。渠道检验的结果显示,代币发行融资阻碍了初创企业人力资本的进一步深化,从而缩短了企业的持续经营时间。从代币发行融资的宏观经济后果来看,代币发行融资所造成的不良影响恶化了地区的信用环境,从而显著提高了地区的融资成本。进一步研究表明,代币发行融资对初创企业的负面影响在信息披露水平较低、不受关注以及缺少媒体监督的样本中更加显著。本文揭示了代币发行融资带来的负面影响,为禁止代币发行融资等规范金融创新的政策提供了经验证据。

数字货币的风险、监管与政策建议

货币在现代经济、金融活动中具有重要意义。研究互联网条件下货币的发展有利于加深对货币本质的认识。货币发展给货币政策和金融监管带来很大的挑战。本文分析了非主权数字货币的风险以及ICO现象。本文还分析了数字货币引发监管问题的主要原因,并给出了数字货币的监管对策。

加密货币相关行为的犯罪定性研究

虚拟货币犯罪日益频发,虚拟货币相关法益亟待刑法保护,然而学界与监管界的讨论尚不充分。从虚拟货币性质的角度考虑,任何虚拟货币都不属于“货币”“证券”或“外汇”的范畴。与虚拟货币相关的行为中,“挖矿”一般不涉及犯罪,但“恶意挖矿”构成计算机犯罪;ICO(旧币换新币)构成非法吸收公众存款罪或集资诈骗罪;欺骗性或非自愿“交易”行为可能构成财产犯罪,其中对同时触犯多种罪名的行为应当以想象竞合原理择一重罪处罚;其他的一般“交易”行为则存在构成逃税罪的风险。