16 Aug, Beijing– A closed-door blockchain seminar was held in Beijing. Around 20 participants from the industry and local authority agree to tighten regulation on ICO and industrial self-discipline is needed at the moment. The meeting voices concern over the wild ICO market and stress that any illegal conduct will be penalized. Star Xu, CEO of OKCoin, hosts the meeting as the Chairman of China Blockchain Application Research Center.

According to the ICO Report of China released by IFCERT, 65 ICO projects have raised a total of 63,523.64BTC, 852,753.36 ETH, some RMB and other virtual currencies

The sheer amount is big enough to raise authority concern over social order if scams disguised as ICO.

ICO and other forms of internet finance must be compliant with regulation. The meeting also warns:

“Any violation of regulation and abuse will be penalized. “

However, official documents on ICO regulation may take a long time. Currently ICO market is going viral as scammers take the ride of ICO and Blockchain to pull off their scehment. Therefore the “industrial self-discipline” is much needed to fill in the void at the moment.

One may notice that the “Big Three” Bitcoin exchanges in China have changed their standing on “ICO-based coins”. The most aggressive one is BTCC, which lists “ICOCOINS” trading on its platform recently. The ICOCOIN is founded by BTCC’s founder, Linke Yang.

ICO is becoming one of the important financing channels for blockchain startups. This article makes a comprehensive study on the connotation, categories and value assessment of ICO. The paper also compares ICO with IPO, equity crowdfunding and other financing methods and proposes specific framework and suggestions for ICO regulations with considerations upon the legislation practice of securities issuance and the current regulatory design. “Regulatory sandbox” is suggested as the practical patch to regulate ICO projects.

PBOC Official: Research on ICO and Its Regulation(full text translation)

ICO is Risk 3.0

It has been made clear that all financial business must be regulated on the two-day National Financial Work Conference in July 2017. A supreme regulatory authority called the “National Financial Stability Development Committee” will be established to coordinate all financial regulations across the country.

The regulatory environment of cryptocurrency ecosystem is expected to be in line with these latest policy changes.

“If risk is not controlled properly, then all innovations will head to its opposite direction.”

“If traditional financial business is rated as 1.0, internet finance is 2.0 and the risk with Blockchain and ICO is 3.0.”

Such warning is based on one the Chinese authorities governance principle: social order stability.

ICO Principles

The meeting also points out several principles for ICO projects to follow: genuine technological innovation, essential reduction, legal transaction, beneficial to society. In terms ICO supervision to be particularly concerned about the points: product registration, information disclosure, asset custody, genuine project and qualified investor.

Star Xu share a number of articles about ICO on his wechat moment. This is a very strong signal for the upcoming ICO regulatory measures.