The First Pan-African Blockchain Standard
Version 0.1: Guidelines for Token Generation Events and Initial Coin Offerings. Access it here: bit.ly/adafstandard1
What if distributed communities could create and constantly update regulatory standards that keep up with the blinding pace of the blockchain space and standards?
The African Digital Asset Framework (ADAF) community recently completed our first pilot to find out. The result is what we’re calling a distributed standard — an evolving set of community-driven rules created to self-regulate an industry.
This is the first standard released through the African Digital Asset Framework project and it focuses on creating consumer protection guidelines and minimum standards for token generation events, commonly referred to as initial coin offerings. The guideline creates a set of standards for consumers, policymakers and entrepreneurs to follow when evaluating or participating in token generation events for utility-token based ecosystems.
Consumer Protection Guidelines for Token Generation Events
We’re calling this first standard the Consumer Protection Guidelines on Token Generation Events, version 0.1, a step-by-step guideline for entrepreneurs to launch TGEs, for consumers to evaluate tokenized ecosystems and for policymakers to draft new legislative frameworks.
The best part is that these Guidelines were prepared and continue to be supported by an open source community of 17 companies in the ADAF community. Together, they represent approximately 14 countries: The Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, Kenya, Malta, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States of America.
ADAF was launched to the world on November 2, 2018. Its objective is simple: to support the growth of distributed ledger technologies and digital assets in line with Pan-African sustainable development objectives. Standards are important for the space to grow, and ADAF acts as an open source repository for anyone, of any community to create, edit, update and support standards.
Our community believes that people should be able to easily participate in creating regulatory standards along with policymakers.
Why TGEs and ICOs?
TGEs can create distributed ecosystems that empower communities to build core infrastructure for distributed ledger technologies. TGEs aren’t dead, they’re evolving. The community preferred to call ICOs by their actual purpose: to distribute tokens in an ecosystem, or a Token Generation Event (TGEs).
TGEs are largely unregulated and there is an urgent need to create minimum standards to protect consumers from fraud and for entrepreneurs to build responsible projects. Each of these standards were created by community representatives, and we’re presenting them to policymakers to adopt these standards into their legislative frameworks.
In 2019, ICOs have been packaged differently. Every day, new projects are being launched, and funds are still being raised via Token Generation Events. While scams may be relatively fewer, losses are just as real as they were in 2017, entrepreneurs are just as wary, and regulations are getting stiffer. It is these problems, among others, that have motivated the conception of these standards.
What’s next?
What’s next is simple. The Guideline is in version 0.1. Over the next few weeks, community members can leave comments, suggestions and debate topics directly on the Google Docs version that can be accessed here. We’ll consolidate all of these comments and integrate them into v0.1, and release version 0.2 of the Guideline on June 15, 2019. Distributed standards are meant to be living, evolving over time to keep up with the pace of technology.
Other pilots for standards are underway, including a standard for building a land titling system with oracles and smart contracts, a security token framework and a self-sovereign identity.
About ADAF
The African Digital Asset Foundation (“ADAF”) is a non-profit and open-source project to create open, accessible and people-driven technological and legal standards to support digital trade between the continent and its diaspora. The ADAF supports the African Digital Asset Framework project.
ADAF is supported by ambassadors from the African Union, African Development Bank, Inter- American Development Bank, Republic of Mauritius, Inter-American Development Bank, Republic of Kenya and the Kasai Kingdom of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Discover more about ADAF at adaf.io, or email us at adaf.io.
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