Malta has enacted three bills into law on Wednesday that are meant to create a clear regulatory framework that will enable the establishment of cryptocurrency businesses on the island. A number of issues that can have an impact on traders and exchanges pop up when examining the new regulations. A prohibition on insider trading, market manipulation and misleading ads or ICO whitepapers.
Also Read: The Daily: Malta Enacts Crypto Bills, Bermuda Wants New Banks, Dotcom Loses Appeal
New Definitions
The Maltese legislatures have gone out of their way to ensure they won’t use any terms that might appear to put them in odds with current European sentiment. So they don’t refer to Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, ICO or anything that might ring familiar to anyone with a negative perception of these. Instead they make up new definitions to govern the “Distributed Ledger Technology” industry.
“DLT asset” means a virtual token; a virtual financial asset; electronic money; or a financial instrument, that is intrinsically dependent on, or utilises, Distributed Ledger Technology. “DLT exchange” means any trading and, or exchange platform or facility, on which any form of DLT asset may be transacted.
A”virtual financial asset” or “VFA” means any form of digital medium recordation that is used as a digital medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of value and that is not – electronic money; a financial instrument; or a virtual token. An “initial VFA offering” means a method of raising funds whereby an issuer is issuing virtual financial assets and is offering them in exchange for funds. “VFA exchange” means a DLT exchange operating on which only virtual financial assets may be transacted.
The purpose of the new definitions is to create categories for crypto businesses which want to establish themselves in Malta
