Initial Coin Offerings ("ICOs”) seem to be the hype of the virtual currency community. ICOs are means for companies to collect money. Instead of writing long business plans and conducting endless pitches, companies can simply create their own crypto, gather a community behind their project, write a whitepaper and do some marketing.
Currently ICOs operate in an uncertain regulatory environment and are used to raise capital for a variety of projects. Given the speculative success of ICOs, the lack of clear guidance and the pending risks for investors, it comes as no surprise that regulators have increasingly started to focus on ICOs. Investors in the Netherlands were warned by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (Autoriteit Financiële Markten), as well as the Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank), that they should avoid ICOs.
In this guide we will give an overview of the current regulatory environment for ICOs in the Netherlands and considerations to think about in the ICO process such as tax implications.
