In the post of 7 April 2021 -regarding “Token World Conference. Law & Markets in Cryptoassets. April 6 – 9, 2021”- we announce that we will have the honour to close this World Token Conference, Friday, April 9, in order to announce the next Alastria Conference on “Cryptoassets transfer: investor protection and liability”.
The following is a reproduction of my intervention:
“It is a pleasure and a privilege for me to close this World Token Conference, particularly opportune in the current moment of MiCA Regulation amendments, presumably concluded in a short time.
My good friend, Prof. Ibáñez, committed me to announce the next Alastria Conference on “Cryptoassets transfer: investor protection and liability”. It will deal with crypto-assets circulation, traffic, cession or transfer. They are different words involving the same concept that is the change of property of tokens coming from wallets or devices of a seller connected to a distributed-ledger (blockchain) network, and acquired by a buyer by means of an order triggered from such wallet and executed by means of a smart contract and its corresponding API interfaces.
These operations are necessary to make effective the change of owner or holder of the token, against the corresponding cryptographic payment. In conclusion, we are in front of new sort of buying and selling agreement (emptio-venditio rei, in Roman law classical terms).
This kind of transfer poses huge queries to regulators and law practitioners in continental jurisdictions tied to private-law Roman principles. Since the civil law theory of «title and mode», that are necessary conditions for the efficacy of the transfer of property, is not applicable to the token transfer or require remarkable adaptations.
Moreover, there is a change from traditional capital market brokers to new brokers that are catalogued as Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) in the MiCA Proposal of September 2020. They are crypto-keys makers, crypto-asset (and key) custodians and new platform managers, substituting the traditional exchanges and its managing companies (i.e. in Spain, Sociedades Rectoras y Gestoras de Sistemas).
These modifications are interesting to the jurists who are forced to analyze in depth the insights of the new crypto-laws for token circulation, besides also analyzing the nature of the new cryptos as the latest phase of the historical evolution of securities (security tokens), as Prof. Ibáñez recently outlined in an outstanding monograph, published by Ed. Reus.
The predominant aims of the new MiCA regime, beyond financial stability, must be investor protection and crypto-market integrity in the sense of MiFID 2 and from a private-law viewpoint.
This is a relevant conclusion of this Token World Conference that will serve as a seminal idea to begin the announced next conference.on “Cryptoassets transfer: investor protection and liability . Wherein civil liability of platform intermediaries and token issuers, responsibility of regulated service providers and accountability of DLT community will be considered to reach new conclusions valuable for EU and national regulators around the world too.
Thank you very much for your attention