Legal Aspects of Crypto Assets and Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

Mehmet Egehan Coşkun*

Crypto assets and their evolving ecosystems are capturing global attention, with Türkiye securing a notable position within the international landscape. The recent legislative proposal presented to the Turkish Grand National Assembly, aiming to amend the Capital Markets Law, underscores this significance. The master’s thesis titled “Legal Aspects of Crypto Assets and Initial Coin Offering (ICO)” was prepared within the Istanbul University Social Sciences Institute’s Commercial Law Master’s program. This thesis, incorporating contemporary legislative changes and developments in crypto assets, was published as a book in August 2023 as part of the “Istanbul University Faculty of Law Private Law Master’s Theses Series.”

The book explores the legal nature of crypto assets, examining them as property, capital market instrumentse and currency. It evaluates the regulations issued by the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye, particularly the Regulation on the Disuse of Crypto Assets in Payments, and delves into the ICO processes.

The classification of crypto assets is a crucial aspect addressed in the study. It advocates for a new classification method, distinguishing crypto assets based on their technical features and uses. Technically, crypto assets can be categorized as transferable/non-transferable, fungible (NFT)/non fungible, stable/unstable, and coin/token. Usage-wise, they can be classified as payment, capital market instruments, and utility types.

In the study the legal evaluation of crypto assets considers them as code snippets, instruments of representation, and the value they represent The study further discusses the Central Bank’s regulations and argues that these do not determine the legal nature of crypto assets but specify which types fall within the regulation’s scope according to Article 3. Lastly, ICOs can be examined as issuance activities involving crypto assets exchanged for other crypto assets or fiat money, and one can make an analogy betweed IPOs and ICOs.

For the full text of this blog post in Turkish, please click here.

* Capital Markets Board; PhD Candidate, Istanbul University Social Sciences Institute