Israeli Securities Authority to determine status of ICOs
The Israeli Securities Authority panel has confirmed that ICOs will be carefully examined, with regulation a possibility. A committee has been formed to determine if ICOs fall within the remit of a security, as defined by the Israeli government. The group will also analyse cryptocurrency regulation across other nations to evaluate whether Bitcoin is a legitimate currency, creating regulatory policies to encourage innovation whilst protecting investors.

The Israeli government has recently announced, through the Israeli Securities Authority panel, that it will begin scrutinizing ICOs more carefully and may potentially regulate them.

The Securities Authority head, Prof. Shmuel Hauser, has announced the formation of a committee to evaluate whether ICOs fall within the definition of a security as established by the Israeli government.

Further, the committee has been tasked with making an analysis of cryptocurrency regulations in other countries in order to evaluate the legitimacy of Bitcoin. The committee’s mandate is to create new regulatory policies which encourage alternative funding channels and technological innovation while at the same time protecting investors from unsupervised investments.

Udi Wertheimer, a digital wallet employee, pointed out the substantial policy shift via Twitter:

Looks like @coindesk and others missed this: Israel today announced it'll investigate whether ICO tokens are securities. This is *big*: 1/n pic.twitter.com/d7KzcY9D7K — Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) August 30, 2017

The Israeli announcement brings additional threats of government control in Israel, where many ICOs have been started. The announcement comes after similar scrutiny was announced by the SEC in response to the DAO token sale.