Our number: NBS1 – 000 – 034 – 005 – 100 – 000 – 174 – 771
Processed by: Ing. Tomas Ambra
Place / date: Bratislava / 6th of June 2019
Opinion
Upon your request for an opinion on the activity of ETERBASE a.s., specifically, whether the company’s activity of operating a trading platform with a wide range of digital assets (described in the application) through the Central Limit Order Book (CLOB) and their subsequent management, respectively, the provision of services relating to the initial underwriting of crypto activity on its platform (Initial Exchange Offerings) falls under the regulation of Act no. 566/2001 Coll. on Securities and Investment Services and under the amendments and additions to certain acts (the securities act), as later amended (hereinafter referred to as the “Securities Act”) and the related supervision of the National Bank of Slovakia on compliance with the act in question, we present to You the following findings:
The Securities Act does not regulate crypto activities nor their trading. The Securities Act does not define them either. In the suggested context, crypto activities cannot be considered as financial instruments under the aforementioned Act. At the same time, the crypto activities cannot be considered as securities, as they do not meet the definition of security set out in § 2 par. 1 of the Act, in particular, the requirement of registration in the shape and form set by the law. With regards to the aforementioned findings, we would like to point out that the activities of ETERBASE a.s. (i.e. in particular, the purchase, sale or, respectively, the management of crypto activities) cannot be considered as the provision of investment services, investment activities or ancillary services pursuant to Section 6 of this Act, and therefore the said activities are not regulated by the Securities Act and do not fall under the National Bank of Slovakia’s supervision of compliance with the law.
For the sake of completeness, we would like to point out that the issue of regulating these aforementioned activities is currently being discussed both within the relevant bodies of the European Union as well as at the global level, and therefore we would like to draw your attention to the need to reflect on future developments in this area.
Ing. Vladimir Dvoracek
Member of the Banking Council of the NBS and executive director of the prudent oversight division
Mgr. Julia Cillikova
Executive director of the regulation and protection of financial consumers division
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