Malaysia now has a legal way to raise funds with tokens — and it deliberately doesn't look like the ICO free-for-all of 2017.
The Securities Commission today published its Guidelines on Digital Assets (SC-GL/1-2020), establishing the framework for fundraising via digital token offerings through Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platforms registered with the SC. Instead of open ICOs, every token offering must pass through a vetted platform that answers to the regulator.
The key numbers
- Issuers may raise up to RM100 million, capped at 20 times shareholders' funds within any 12-month period, from retail, sophisticated and angel investors (subject to investment limits per class).
- Issuers need a minimum RM500,000 paid-up capital.
- IEO platform operators need RM5 million.
SC Chairman Datuk Syed Zaid Albar framed the intent: digital token offerings "can provide another alternative fundraising avenue for early stage entrepreneurs."
What happens next
The guidelines come into force in the second half of 2020, giving prospective platform operators time to prepare. The association reads this as the SC's characteristic pattern — no outright bans, but no unsupervised markets either. For Malaysian startups that have watched token fundraising happen everywhere but here, the runway is finally being built.