Global Tech Exchange’s Token Sale Put on Hold by ASIC

By Swati Kishore

Global Tech Exchange, the Australian Blockchain-based project which was planning to raise as much as USD 500 million through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), has announced on its website on October 22, 2018 that the token sale has been put on hold by the Australian Securities Investments Commission.

The Brisbane-based project’s website stated that the ICO has been stopped after the country’s securities regulator stepped in.

As per the announcement on its official website, Global Tech Exchange stated that it ceased the ICO in accordance with the regulations of ASIC. The project also cut Michael Clarke’s association with Global Tech Exchange as well as its subsidiary, the Global Tech Exchange Education and Awareness Program. Further, the statement stated that the project will ensure that it complies with ASIC’s requirements and requests to the best of its ability. It also read that full refund will be initiated to the investors:

“As a result of this Global Tech has issued full refunds to all investors. If you have invested with Global Tech and have not yet received a refund please contact [email protected].”

As per ICO Bench, the ICO tracking website, Global Tech aspired to raise somewhere between USD 10 to 50 million for the development of a digital currency trading platform. The token sale began on September 12, 2018, and it was slated to run until the end of this year. It remains unclear as to how much funds the project has already managed to raise.

Global Tech Exchange rose to prominence prior to its public token sale in August when it was heavily endorsed by the Australian International Cricketer, Michael Clarke. Clarke has since parted ways with the project.

The news of Global Tech Exchange’s ICO shutdown follows after several such cases were reported. In fact, ASIC has halted as much as five ICOs since the April of this year. As per the regulator, while certain ICOs were paused in order to restructure them so as to meet the applicable legal requirements, others were put to rest as they were conceived as possibly misleading.