Lithuania has released comprehensive new guidelines for cryptocurrency and initial coin offerings or ICOs, calling it a step towards more certainty and transparency in the financial market.
In a document, the Ministry of Finance divided guidelines into four areas, such as regulation, taxation, accounting, and Anti-Money Laundering/ Combating the Financing of Terrorism or AML/CFT. Of these, three sections focus on cryptocurrency.
Minister of Finance, Vilius Šapoka, said ICOs should be regulated. According to him, Lithuania already has an exceptional regulatory advantage being one of the first ones in Europe to have prepared such guidelines.
Šapoka further clarified that the guidelines describe only part of the aspects examined by relevant institutions.
"Organizing ICO is not regulated by specific legislation, however, taking into account different ICO models and different characteristics of tokens, in some cases, such activity may be subject to the requirements of the legislation of the Republic of Lithuania and supervision of the Bank of Lithuania.," the document stated.
The move comes two months after the government set up a roundtable in the country to establish dialogue between banks, ICO operators and others, Cointelegraph noted.
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