TechFlow reports that officials from Taiwan's financial regulatory authority have confirmed the agency recently held a public hearing with industry stakeholders to gather external feedback. The "Guidelines for the Supervision of Virtual Asset Platform and Trading Business (VASP)" are expected to be officially announced by the end of this month, followed by self-regulatory norms to be further established by industry associations. The guidelines will include 10 key points:
1. Strengthen management of virtual asset issuance. If a virtual asset is issued through a platform, the issuer must publish its whitepaper and disclose required information on its own website, while the platform must post a link to the issuer’s website.
2. Establish review mechanisms for listing and delisting virtual assets. Operators must set clear standards and procedures for reviewing virtual asset whitepapers and listing/delisting decisions, and incorporate these into their internal control systems.
3. Enhance segregation of platform and customer assets. Assets—whether legal tender or virtual assets—collected by platforms for trading or payment services must be kept separate from the platform’s own assets.
4. Promote fair and transparent trading. Platforms must establish and publicly disclose trading rules and implement mechanisms to ensure market fairness.
5. Strengthen contract terms, advertising practices, and complaint handling. The guidelines will require platforms to uphold client protection based on principles of fairness, reasonableness, equality, mutual benefit, and good faith.
6. Establish operational systems, information security protocols, and hot/cold wallet management. Platforms must clearly define management systems for business continuity, information security, and private key controls for hot and cold wallets.
7. Information disclosure. Platforms must fully disclose information regarding asset issuance, listing/delisting, asset segregation, trading rules, transaction data, and client protections.
8. Strengthen internal controls and audit mechanisms. Platforms must establish internal control and audit systems ensuring independent and objective operations, and must agree to on-site inspections conducted by the financial regulator or its authorized agents.
9. Apply equivalent anti-money laundering (AML) supervision to individual crypto dealers as to corporate entities. Individuals engaging in virtual asset businesses and submitting AML compliance declarations to the regulator must meet the same declaration content and quality standards as legal entities.
10. Prohibit overseas crypto platforms from conducting unauthorized business activities. Overseas virtual asset platforms that have not registered under the Company Act and submitted AML compliance declarations to Taiwan’s financial regulator are prohibited from soliciting business in Taiwan or to Taiwanese residents.
