The increasing interest by governments towards developing cryptocurrency and ICO legislation is unsurprising given the crypto-economies recent rise in overall market value and popularity.
While ICOs have been around since 2013, it was only around May 2017 that investors really began to show an interest in these hi-tech ventures.
This trend seems to be continuing, as ICO funding from this year has already topped the entire total earnings of last year (~$3,9 Billion USD for 2017 vs. ~$5.5 Billion USD as of mid-April 2018). The current total market cap is at ~$260 Billion USD from ~$16.8 Billion USD in December 2016 (CoinMarketCap).
In light of this, it’s not surprising that so many major economic powers have been moving towards legislating ICOs. Indeed, 2017 already saw significant legislative activity from countries such as China, Russia and South Korea (Read More). Other countries have been following suit.
You can see the 2018 updates on 2018 legislation here:
https://bit.ly/2JFeema![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Furbancrypto.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F04%2Fcourt.jpg&t=665&c=TLHuspM3Hq6jAg)