Following the publishing of my Open Letter to the OSC yesterday, a related initiative I am spearheading is “Token Awareness Canada”.
This is a non-profit initiative with a single public benefit goal: promote responsible practices in Token generation events via the publishing or creation of best practices around them.
The web site where this information will be published is: www.tokenawareness.ca, and I am joined by a small steering group to guide its evolution. One of the key deliverables will be a set of best practices for issuing tokens for Canada. The website will also be a central jumping point with comprehensive resources relating to this topic, including regulatory and compliance aspects.
Some groups are advocating self-regulation for the industry via a proposed set of disclosures. Others are calling for more consultation and dialogue with the regulators. This initiative is more about education and using what we already have. We cannot wait for the regulators who are typically slow to react, while they continue to study the many alternatives they have. This field is still evolving and maturing in many of its aspects, but entrepreneurs cannot sit and wait.
This is not a self-regulation type of initiative. I don’t believe that self-regulation will work in this field. The regulators are the ones who will regulate. Their job is to update their compliance requirements, and clarify the applicability of existing ones. Our job in the market, as entrepreneurs or investors is to implement sound and responsible practices so that the regulators find us uninteresting to worry about.
It is my hope that the website Token Awareness in Canada becomes a central jumping point for Canadian tech companies wishing to take a responsible route towards the new way of creating innovation with token-based models. It will be updated gradually and curated very tightly in order to maintain the quality levels that it aspires to meet.