Malta approved the first official cryptocurrency offering after two years of negotiations. While the first ICO was approved, there are still dozens of projects pending regulators’ approval.
Known for its positive outlook on cryptocurrencies, Malta announced the first project legally approved by a financial regulator. Malta, named as “Blockchain Island” in Decrypt’s report, announced that the first project approved was VAIOT, an artificial intelligence supported blockchain hybrid project. The public offering of the project will take place this year.
With this move of the Malta Financial Services Authority, many crypto money projects turned their eyes to the country. Many more platforms and projects, including crypto money exchanges, are eagerly awaiting how the official approval will take shape in the future.
VAIOT got the first approval
Having received the first official approval, VAIOT develops and delivers AI-powered services for businesses and companies. Christoph Surgowt, CEO of VAIOT, answered questions to Decrypt about Malta’s practices. Surgowt said Malta is leading the future EU regulations. The CEO also talked about the revenue from the IPO and the goals they wanted to achieve.
“Our token will not only support the development of digital financial assets and innovative solutions such as VAIOT, but also provide an ecosystem that will protect investors and traders.”
Projects flocked to Malta
The announcement made by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) last Monday was actually long awaited. MFSA has made an official ICO approval for a project for the first time. Making a name for itself with its innovative attitude in the cryptocurrency world, Malta announced its legal approval process for the ICO in 2018, and then an influx of the country started on this issue. Malta received 340 license applications during 2019 alone, but the country has so far not approved one of the applications to avoid contradicting European Union regulations.
By experts, Malta is shown among the candidate countries to become the cryptocurrency capital of the world with the help of the legal regulations it has made. Nevertheless, some industry experts, who closely followed the application process, claimed that the process was quite costly and the regulations were very strict.
