ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the functions and operation of some crypto-assets that are either already on the market or have been proposed, by looking at attempts to regulate them and discussing regulatory attitudes and policy directions. The main crypto-assets to be analysed against both laws and regulations include exchange tokens (payment tokens), security tokens (asset tokens), utility tokens, fund tokens, commodity tokens, title tokens and hybrid tokens. There are also variations within a single token class. For instance, while share tokens and debt tokens are subsets of security tokens, they should not be treated in the same way, using the same rules, in contexts such as issuance or insolvency. The overall aim is to discover whether legal taxonomy and regulatory intervention can help in the construction of the emerging crypto-asset market with the goal of creating a boundary-free virtual Crypto-Republic.
Keywords: crypto-assets, payment tokens, utility tokens, asset tokens, commodity tokens, private law
