Gibraltar’s minister for digital and financial services, Albert Isola has hinted the public about the upcoming regulations that seeks to reduce market manipulation among blockchain startups.

In a recent interview with The Banker, the minister hinted that, the Gibraltar government will introduce regulations to minimize market manipulations in the blockchain space. According to Isola, the government is planning to do this within the next few months. He also emphasized the need for regulators to abreast themselves with the global development within the blockchain space in order to remain ‘fit for purpose’.

In addition, Isola highlighted some decisions taken by his government to abandon its development of a law for guiding token sales, amid the ICO bubble. He claims when they were ready to launch this regulation in 2019, it was close to the publication of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations. He said the ICO bubble was also going down during the launch time so the law wasn’t going to serve its intended purpose.

The country claims to have been the first jurisdiction to regulate and license blockchain companies when the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) introduced a modified fintech license for such companies in January 2018. According to Isola, 15 blockchain companies are currently under the regulatory oversight of the government.

The regulations entailed nine core principles which include directives addressing risk management, cybersecurity, and financial crime. According to the minister, manipulation is an increased risk among blockchain companies. He emphasized that a tenth core regulatory principle will tackle this issue.

The minister further noted that the government is currently developing a technology solution to address recommendations by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in its 2019 review of the territory’s financial regulations. The solution will basically seek to address the FATF’s travel rule, and will be designed to automatically collect information about transactions made by the companies in the country.