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Building a Crypto Exchange (Part I) – What are the Regulatory Design Possibilities?
Since BaFin qualifies Bitcoins and comparable cryptocurrencies as financial instruments, the operating of a crypto exchange requires the operator to be BaFin licensed. But what are the requirements to fulfill in order to acquire such license and what are the conceptual design options that businesses have for meeting these requirements while at the same time […]
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What are the Regulatory Requirements for Operation in Germany?
Probably one of the oldest Bitcoin based business models since Bitcoin became popular is the operating of Bitcoin ATMs. ATM is the abbreviation for Automated Teller Machine while a Bitcoin ATM is a machine that changes Bitcoin into bank money and vice versa. In other European countries like Austria, Switzerland or the Netherlands Bitcoin ATMs […]
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E-Money on a Blockchain: What Serives can a Cypto E-Money Institution Offer?
Blockchain tokens that are issued by the emitter in exchange for money and that can be exchanged back to a legal tender and that are accepted as a means of payment by others than the issuer can be e-money from a regulatory perspective. But what are the advantages of blockchain based e-money and who would be legally […]
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How Should a Security Token be Legally Designed?
Since a few weeks the German crypto community celebrates the first BaFin approved securities prospectus, being fully compliant with German regulatory laws and statues. With this approval BaFin really displayed an innovative and progressive attitude towards blockchain based funding methods. At least three more STO prospectuses are currently awaiting BaFin’s approval and more will follow. […]
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Security Token Offering vs. Initial Public Offering – Are STOs a Real Alternative to the Conventional Issuing of Securities?
After the end of the crypto-hype in February 2018, initial coin offerings (ICOs) in general do not accumulate as much capital anymore as before. The exchange prices of the tokens decreased in many cases and ICO investors more often than not had to come to the conclusion that the business ideas in which they had […]
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E-money on a Blockchain?
Most publications covering cryptocurrencies and e-money come to the conclusion that Bitcoins cannot be classified as e-money in the sense of the German Payment Services Act (ZAG) because of the fact that there is no emitter who issued the coins in the first place while such emitter is a prerequisite to the e-money definition according […]
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Interview with Lutz Auffenberg on #STOinGermany
Geekforge Academy interviewed Atty. Lutz Auffenberg, LL.M. as german legal expert on the proper legal and regulatory drafting of #SecurityTokenOffering under German law. The full interview is available here:
