France is setting its sight to become next global centre for ICOs, as its government continues to push for the creation of flexible and safe regulatory guidelines in which companies could raise capital through ICOs. The French market regulator, Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) is assisting the government in formulating the new regulatory framework.
The French government is taking a wholly different stance from rest of its counterparts, who are closed to the idea of regulating the crypto-sphere and have resisted on such fundraising mechanism and some have implemented a full-scale ban.
The proposal from AMF suggests having a truly liberal optional authorization scheme, allowing companies to receive a visa for the purpose of launching an ICO. The visa will confirm that the regulator has approved the credibility and operations of the company thereby ensuring a greater scope of safety for investors. However, AMF has not restricted the companies that didn’t receive a visa to launch their ICOs, but in absence of visa credibility of the company will be questioned and investment might contain more risks.
However, the proposal from AMF has not addressed the issue of scams and fraudulent activities in the ICO market in past couple of years, cheating millions of investors. But AMF has shown its commitment to keep the system clean from such activities when it blacklisted 15 cryptocurrency investment websites, assuring investors that this space will be monitored and assessed for proper conduct and lawful operational activities. AMF mentions that it will take a different approach while regulating the cryptocurrency space.
Several countries including China and South-Korea have severely hindered the ability of citizens to invest in ICOs, with China moving further to ban all crypto related activities and websites. China has also clamped the crypto mining activities by restricting the availability of clean and cheap power supply which is important for ensuring profitability of mining operations.
