Over the past year, the blockchain projects in Lithuania were able to raise through the initial sentences of coins (ICO) about $500 million, according to local organizations, Startup Lithuania and Blockchain Centre.
As acknowledged in the European Commission, for a small European state such contribution, the cryptocurrency sector in the overall growth of the economy in the country was quite noticeable. It is expected that by the end of this year, the Lithuanian economy will grow by 3.1%. In General, the EU forecast is 2.3%.
As in the Baltic countries and in the EU regulation of the industry cryptocurrency and ICO is still under development. One of the main risks of digital currencies regulators see the possibility of their use in money laundering and illegal transactions.
In Lithuania the concern of the Central Bank in this regard is geographically defined — the regulator fears the influx of illegal money in the digital sector of the Russian underworld.
“We undesirable the Russian capital penetrating into the local economy. We constantly remind all about the risks — “I don’t want to see 70% of your ICO investors coming from Russia.” The opaque influx of capital from Russia does not correspond to our national interests,” — said the member of the management Board of the Bank of Lithuania Marius Jurgilas (Marius Jurgilas).
Attracting investment through the holding of ICO looks more simple than through venture financing or IPO. The head of one of the largest in the world kryptomere Binance Zhao Chanpen (Changpeng Zhao) recently expressed the opinion that “raising money via the ICO about 100 times, if not more, easier than through traditional venture capital funding”. Despite the risk of fraud, he added.
Fraud on the market conduct of ICO remains a problem in Lithuania, we can recall the project Prodeum caught up Scam.
However, the known Lithuanian businessman and member of the European Parliament Antanas Guga (Antennas Guoga) I’m sure that not everyone who promotes projects in the field are “crypto-chap”. Most of them are hardworking entrepreneurs who want to create an honest product, says Antanas Guga, better known as Tony g (Tony G).
“We don’t know how it’s going and where it will create new protocols. Most of the projects just trying to meet expectations — they are not stuffed with cash, while the projects will not succeed. In economic terms, we are still far behind Western Europe, but we have nothing to lose”, — he stressed.
We will remind, earlier the Minister of Finance of Lithuania Vilius Sapoka (Vilius Šapoka) said that, despite the present risks, we cannot ignore the cryptocurrency. The Finance Ministry this month published guidelines for the conduct of the ICO.
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