ICOs are a global phenomenon, with 22.19% originating in the EU/EEA, 12.44% in the rest of Europe, 18.81% in Asia and Australia, 14.03% in North America, 3.56% in various Caribbean and Indian-Pacific islands, and 6.07% spread across the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America. The issuing entity or promoter's origin could not be identified in  roughly 22.02% of ICO whitepapers.

Geographical breakdown of ICOs

Given that ICOs are not subject to specific regulatory requirements, their content is unsurprisingly inconsistent. Almost all ICOs rely on legislative loopholes, and only  32.7% of them mention the applicable law. 82.69% of ICOs give no information at all about their regulatory status. 

Legal information and applicable law of ICOs

ICOs typically involve documentation (often called a white paper) that tends to give a simple description of the project and the structure used to support it. White papers for ICOs often reveal very little about the issuing entities and their backers, with one study finding that ICO documentation failed to convey any information at all about the issuing entity in 20% of cases.

Issuing entities and backers of ICOs

- Issuing entities and backers of ICOs
- Legal information and applicable law of ICOs
- Geographical breakdown of ICOs

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

- Regulatory characteristics of ICOs
- ICO risks and policy considerations
- Appropriateness of existing legal frameworks for ICOs

Regulation of ICOs

Zetzsche, Dirk Andreas and Buckley, Ross P. and Arner, Douglas W. and Arner, Douglas W. and Föhr, Linus, The ICO Gold Rush: It's a Scam, It's a Bubble, It's a Super Challenge for Regulators (July 24, 2018). University of Luxembourg Law Working Paper No. 11/2017, UNSW Law Research Paper No. 17-83, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2017/035, European Banking Institute Working Paper Series 18/2018, Harvard International Law Journal, Vol. 63, No. 2, 2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3072298 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3072298

The ICO Gold Rush

Regulatory characteristics of ICOs

- Information asymmetry in ICOs
- Capital misallocation in ICOs
- Weak legal protections in ICOs
- Systemic risk in ICOs

ICO risks and policy considerations

Given the variety of ICOs, a one-size-fits-all legal analysis of ICOs is impossible. Any legal assessment must consider the particularities of individual offerings, and apply them in the context of financial law and regulation, including:

- Legally relevant conduct
- General consumer protection legislation
- Financial law and regulation
- Crowdfunding legislation

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