Legal and compliance update
Many in the community have been asking for an update on the status of our token sale. The short answer is that everything is ready on the technical side and we are simply waiting for final approval from the Financial Market Authority (FMA) of Liechtenstein. While we expect to have this confirmed very soon, the FMA does not provide a concrete timeline on the approval process. We will announce FMA approval as soon as we have it, and the token sale will happen exactly one week after that announcement to give the community time to prepare.
Here is a more detailed description of the process:
Why does Nash need regulatory approval?
Fundamentally, the reason Nash needs regulatory approval is that the Nash Exchange token (NEX) is a security token. This status as a security brings many benefits, such as protection for investors against market manipulation, fraud and insider trading. It also allows Nash to pay its investors dividends through fees taken by the exchange, a form of profit-sharing. These benefits come at the cost of compliance with a regulatory approval process that can be slow at the best of times. The Nash legal team consists of more than twenty lawyers from several firms across the world.
Why is the Nash Exchange token (NEX) a security ?
Putting aside the broad set of advantages mentioned above, we believe that every exchange token is, in practice, a security. These tokens primarily derive their value from the success of the exchanges that issue them, not from any fixed utility or the efforts of those holding the tokens.
What would be the value of an exchange token if the exchange stopped running? If the website went offline and no one continued to develop the project? If there was no fee collected by the platform? The true value of exchange tokens is strongly tied to the success of the platform.
Other projects have attempted to circumvent this logic with complex legal arguments that may or may not hold up to scrutiny, and they continue to operate their platforms without following security and anti-money laundering (AML) laws. In our view, this behavior poses a major risk to investors, as these platforms may suffer harsh consequences when laws are eventually enforced.
What does the approval process consist of?
You can read more about the process on the FMA website. In short, the process requires a green light from an independent legal perspective, which takes the form of an extensive legal analysis. In our case, this has produced a document more than 80 pages long.
