The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) is building infrastructure to allow companies to conduct initial coin offering (ICO), Reuters reported.

The company’s head Alexander Afanasyev told the media giant that MOEX plans to launch the project this year. He said that the platform will not list ICO tokens, rather publish token sale data, providing information on various aspects related to ICOs.

"We are now developing projects, creating the basic infrastructure in order to be able to display companies on the ICO, in order to be able to display tokens, so that this token would be described - which is now missing at all those sites that offer this kind of services," he said (loosely translated).

ICOs have become an increasingly popular way of raising funds by technology startups all across the globe. According to ICO stats for 2018, so far 428 ICOs have been conductive this year that have raised close to $10 billion.

According to Deloitte:

“An ICO, otherwise called a “token sale” or “token launch,” is where a company is creating a new product with an associated utility, and wants to build an ecosystem of stakeholders upfront who will benefit from purchasing the product early. This token sale enables the company to further develop their product with an established user base, and the company can use some of the proceeds to build the product.”

With the potential of these ICO tokens falling under the scope of securities laws, global regulatory authorities, such as the U.S. SEC, the CSA, Hong Kong’s SFC, and the MAS, have been issuing guidance on how to conduct these drives in a way that are compliant with a country’s securities laws.

Afanasyev said that key focus would be on explaining to investors the obligations that the issuer of the token assumes, what a token means, and other details related to ICOs. The MOEX is also ready to consider issuing future contracts for ICO assets, provided there is substantial demand from investors.

“Right now we’re looking at this from the point of view of fiat currencies, because cryptocurrencies don’t have the status of a legally protected asset. If they obtain that status, we will place them in our system as well,” he said (as translated by CoinTelegraph).

[Update: The second para has been edited to include that the platform will not list ICO tokens]