Open Access

Christina Ruh, Michel CharifzadehORCiD, Tim Herberger

• Initial Coin Offering (ICO) und damit verbundene Token spielen bei der Unternehmensfinanzierung eine immer bedeutsamere Rolle. Dies gilt insbesondere im Fall von Start-ups, deren Geschäftsmodell auf der Blockchain-Technologie basiert. Dieser Beitrag stellt die verschiedenen Tokenvarianten im Rahmen eines ICO vor und gibt einen Überblick über den aktuellen rechtlichen Hintergrund.
• Initial Coin Offering (ICO) are playing an increasingly important role in the context of corporate and project finance, not least due to a recent media focus. This is particularly relevant for start-ups whose business model is based on blockchain technology. This paper presents the different token types and gives an overview of the current legal framework to ICOs. We show that tokens are similar to the classical financing framework of equity and debt capital. From the investor’s point of view, it also becomes apparent that there is a need for more concrete details in the design of the legal framework for ICOs and the tokens, if comparable framework conditions are to be established for a classic Initial Public Offering (IPO).