Sir Lankan Government Warns Against Scam Initial Coin Offerings

The authorities of Sri Lanka has cautioned its residents to watch out for fraudsters posing as authorities officers to stage Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), mining operations or digital foreign money brokerage. They mentioned such actions “have no regulatory oversight or safeguards relating to their usage in Sri Lanka.”

The authorities gave this stern warning by way of its Central Bank (CBSL) in a press launch on July 12, 2022, following the latest developments within the worldwide and home markets and the inquiries associated to digital foreign money. 

CBSL mentioned, “virtual currencies (VCs) are largely unregulated digital representations of value issued by private entities and can be electronically traded.”

Although the apex financial institution had in 2018 and 2021 introduced that no entity or firm had secured a license or authorization to function schemes involving VCs, like cryptocurrency alternate and mining providers. The report additionally reiterated that utilizing debit or bank cards for funds associated to digital foreign money transactions is against the law in keeping with established legal guidelines within the Foreign Exchange Act, No. 12 of 2017.

In their phrases:

The public is due to this fact warned of the attainable publicity to important monetary, operational, authorized and security-related dangers and buyer safety considerations posed to the customers by investments in VCs. The public can be warned to not fall prey to varied forms of VC schemes provided by way of the Internet in addition to different types of media.

The Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka these days fell into chaos with the residents taking on the nation’s president’s villa throughout a protest. This pushed Justin Sun, the founding father of the Tron Blockchain, to say he has “some great ideas on how to get Sri Lanka out of bankruptcy and into prosperity with Web3 as a solution.” 

The Twitter neighborhood largely took the proposition from Sun as a joke.