With all of the scrutiny directed toward initial coin offerings, a lot of exchanges have come under fire. The listing of such tokens can be considered a liability right now, particularly in certain parts of the world. Gatecoin, a company based in Hong Kong, recently announced the delisting of various ICO tokens from its platform. This is not necessarily good news for any of the affected tokens, mind you, but the Hong Kong SFC hasn’t taken kindly toward these tokens whatsoever.
GateCoin Makes Some interesting Decisions
Every cryptocurrency exchange in the world strives to be fully compliant with new regulatory measures. That has become much easier said than done these days, as there are so many new rules being introduced on a regular basis. Especially when it comes to cryptocurrency ICO tokens, exchanges have to remain on their toes at all times and adhere to the latest guidelines. For its part, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission isn’t a big fan of initial coin offerings whatsoever.
In fact, its statement issued last month leaves very little to the imagination, to say the least. While a regulatory compliance review has yet to be fully completed, Gatecoin feels that now was a good time to take some preemptive action. As a result, it plans to get rid of a fair few ICO tokens on the platform, assuming said tokens are considered to be securities. It is unclear which tokens will be removed over the coming weeks, though, as the company is still performing an internal investigation as we speak.
More specifically, GateCoin’s legal team is going over every ICO token currently found on the exchange itself. It is not improbable that quite a few of those would be considered securities, although the Hong Kong SFC’s evaluation may indicate otherwise. From the perspective of the exchange, there is no point in taking unnecessary risks. Once the review is completed, GateCoin will delist the affected tokens. Much of this depends on whether or not a particular token’s founders have structured their creation in accordance with the SFC framework.
Once GateCoin confirms which tokens will be delisted, owners of such balances will have one full week to exchange their tokens for Bitcoin or Ether. While it is good to see customers receive this opportunity, rest assured a lot of customers will ignore this development and blame the company for not letting them withdraw their money once everything is said and done. Issues like these will occur every single time a company decides to delist tokens or coins for whatever reason.
For the time being, it remains to be seen which of GateCoin’s tokens could prove to be problematic. Its current offering of trading markets is not all that big, although some of its most recent additions will raise a lot of eyebrows. The listing of Aventus, which was only recently released, may result in particular scrutiny. GateCoin also supports tokens such as MCO, PAY, MGO, and SNT. It will be interesting to see whether any of those will need to be removed.
Future updates on the matter will be provided by the company in the coming days and weeks. There is no official timeline as to when Gatecoin will make its final decisions regarding ICO tokens, but rest assured they will be met with some controversy on the part of the platform’s users. Even though the company announced this measure well in advance, there will always be individuals who will blame the company regardless. Ultimately, GateCoin is subject to thorough scrutiny by government regulators, which is always the fate of centralized companies involved in cryptocurrency trading.
