The Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has confirmed that it has not authorized any organization to carry out the initial placement of coins (ICO) with the official permission of the agency.
On March 26, the regulator published an official announcement stating that, to date, the agency has not approved or exercised any authority to authorize or inspect any projects in the ICO sector.
Thus, the CNMV emphasized that any official documentation or other documentation sent to potential investors of the ICO must contain a disclaimer stating that it “was not subject to any consideration by the CNMV or any other administrative authority”, or similar language on this account.
The regulator stressed that any ICO-related documentation that states otherwise is inappropriate unless the text has been formally reviewed or approved by the agency.
The agency also added that its regulatory oversight has so far limited itself to confirming that in the case of tokens, which are considered securities, the sale of tokens below a certain threshold does not require regulatory approval. This threshold is defined as the issuance of tokens of less than 5 million euros intended for less than 150 retail investors – or otherwise in cases where the minimum investment amount per investor is at least 100,000 euros.
The agency added a reservation, however, that:
“This, logically, does not depend on the fact that the participation of a company providing investment services may be necessary in accordance with the provisions of article 35.3 of the LMV [Spanish Securities Market Act] and in accordance with the conditions set out in the criteria published by the CNMV in that regard. "
As previously reported, in January of this year, CNMV added 23 unauthorized currency and cryptocurrency objects to its list of warnings. Among them was currency exchange and forex, which was also noted by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority to work in Poland without a required license.
