{"id":6730,"date":"2019-09-26T08:54:59","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T06:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/?p=6730"},"modified":"2026-03-04T14:01:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T12:01:35","slug":"bafin-new-leaflet-icos-stos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/bafin-new-leaflet-icos-stos\/","title":{"rendered":"BaFin Publishes New Leaflet for ICOs and STOs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has published a new, detailed information note on the current legal situation regarding the so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winheller.com\/en\/banking-finance-and-insurance-law\/bitcoin-trading\/initial-coin-offering-ico-germany.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Initial Coin Offerings<\/strong><\/a> (ICOs) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winheller.com\/en\/banking-finance-and-insurance-law\/bitcoin-trading\/initial-coin-offering-ico-germany\/security-tokens.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Security Token Offerings<\/strong><\/a> (STOs). The authority explains which licensing obligations may exist for an ICO, when a security token is available and which documents must be submitted to BaFin in order to obtain legal information or approval for one&#8217;s own project.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6738\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/bafin-ico-sto.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6738\" class=\"wp-image-6738 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/bafin-ico-sto.jpg\" alt=\"BaFin Publishes New Leaflet for ICOs and STOs\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-6738\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority has published a new information note on the current legal situation regarding ICOs and STOs.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Investments on the blockchain are a security<\/h3>\n<p>BaFin is initially sticking to the traditional division of tokens:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Currency Tokens,<\/li>\n<li>Utility Tokens and<\/li>\n<li>Security tokens.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A typical feature of a security token is that it represents a social right, for example a share or a bond. In addition, BaFin also assumes that a so-called asset investment, which is made tradable via a security token on the blockchain, &#8220;mutates&#8221; into a security.<\/p>\n<p>For example, individualized profit participation rights can be linked to a token and thus become securities. Instead of an investment prospectus, they then require a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winheller.com\/en\/banking-finance-and-insurance-law\/securities-law\/securities-prospectus-germany.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>securities prospectus<\/strong><\/a>. The great advantage of a securities prospectus is that it can be used throughout the European Economic Area.<\/p>\n<h3>BaFin asks for professional inquiries<\/h3>\n<p>Since much is still unclear in the area of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) such as the blockchain, it is advisable to coordinate one&#8217;s individual project with BaFin. For this purpose, BaFin has published a catalogue of necessary documents in its leaflet, which is needed to provide concrete advice. These documents require professional processing and legal preparation in order to be translated into the &#8220;BaFin language&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Those interested in ICO and STO should contact an attorney with expertise in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winheller.com\/en\/banking-finance-and-insurance-law\/banking-regulations-bafin.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>supervisory law<\/strong><\/a> and in cryptocurrencies. WINHELLER has been successfully advising companies in the field of blockchain technology for several years and will be happy to assist you in the implementation of a successful ICO\/STO.<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/tokenised-investments-securities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>German BaFin Classifies Tokenised Investments as Securities<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.winheller.com\/en\/banking-finance-and-insurance-law\/banking-regulations-bafin.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Who requires a BaFin license?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has published a new, detailed information note on the current legal situation regarding the so-called Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and Security Token Offerings (STOs). The authority explains which licensing obligations may exist for an ICO, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":6112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,1152],"tags":[287],"class_list":["post-6730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-regulations","category-digital-currencies","tag-bafin"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6730"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6760,"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions\/6760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winheller.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}