The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) is drawing up national standards for initial coin offerings (ICOs) to make virtual tokens as easy to invest in as stocks and just as liquid, FSC Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday.
The draft is to be completed by June next year, he told a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee.
Koo made the remarks after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) said at a question-and-answer session on whether the government would regulate ICOs.
To conduct an ICO, businesses typically post a white paper on the Internet that outlines their ideas on token use, issue requirements and expected growth before offering virtual tokens for sale.
However, 127 white papers worldwide were found last year to have been faked and as of April, 80 papers were found to be inaccurate, Tseng said. Citing data from ICO advisory firm Satis Group, Tseng said that 81 percent of ICOs have been identified as scams.
The commission would regulate ICOs, Koo said, but added that tokens exchanged for goods, such as those used in accruing points at convenience stores or mileage points accepted by airlines, would not be covered by the standards.
“The more we regulate, the more this new economic behavior wanes,” Koo said.
The commission has no intention of curbing the creativity and productivity associated with cryptocurrencies if they are not used as securities, he said.
“People often confuse an ICO with the trading of cryptocurrencies,” Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director-General Tsai Li-ling (蔡麗玲) said by telephone.
An ICO is a type of public fundraising activity, whereas cryptocurrency trading is similar to trading in gold, for which the commission only implements money laundering controls, Tsai said.
If the token in an ICO functioned similar to a security, the commission would define it as a “securities token” and subject it to the Securities and Exchange Act (證交法), Tsai said.
The issuer would also need to disclose information similar to what companies that are publicly traded need to do now, she said.
However, without referencing the standards of other countries, it would be difficult to draft standards for ICOs, Tsai said.
The government tends to regard cryptocurrencies as virtue commodities or assets rather than currencies, because they have no intrinsic value, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told the committee, explaining why the commission should be responsible for regulating ICOs.
The commission said it has helped prosecutors investigate three cases of suspected ICO fraud.
One of the cases involved a private company advertising that coins could be exchanged for equities, which might have violated the Securities and Exchange Act and the Banking Act (銀行法), the commission said.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
‘REMARKABLE SHOWING’: The economy likely grew 5 percent in the first half of the year, although it would likely taper off significantly, TIER economist Gordon Sun said The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) yesterday raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.02 percent, citing robust export-driven expansion in the first half that is likely to give way to a notable slowdown later in the year as the front-loading of global shipments fades. The revised projection marks an upward adjustment of 0.11 percentage points from April’s estimate, driven by a surge in exports and corporate inventory buildup ahead of possible US tariff hikes, TIER economist Gordon Sun (孫明德) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy likely grew more than 5 percent in the first six months
SMART MANUFACTURING: The company aims to have its production close to the market end, but attracting investment is still a challenge, the firm’s president said Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said its long-term global production plan would stay unchanged amid geopolitical and tariff policy uncertainties, citing its diversified global deployment. With operations in Taiwan, Thailand, China, India, Europe and the US, Delta follows a “produce at the market end” strategy and bases its production on customer demand, with major site plans unchanged, Delta president Simon Chang (張訓海) said on the sidelines of a company event yesterday. Thailand would remain Delta’s second headquarters, as stated in its first-quarter earnings conference, with its plant there adopting a full smart manufacturing system, Chang said. Thailand is the firm’s second-largest overseas
SUPPLY RESILIENCE: The extra expense would be worth it, as the US firm is diversifying chip sourcing to avert disruptions similar to the one during the pandemic, the CEO said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) on Wednesday said that the chips her company gets from supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would cost more when they are produced in TSMC’s Arizona facilities. Compared with similar parts from factories in Taiwan, the US chips would be “more than 5 percent, but less than 20 percent” in terms of higher costs, she said at an artificial intelligence (AI) event in Washington. AMD expects its first chips from TSMC’s Arizona facilities by the end of the year, Su said. The extra expense is worth it, because the company is