Gibraltar: Token Classification

Token Classification

Gibraltar has not adopted a codified statutory token taxonomy equivalent to EU MiCA (such as separate statutory categories for ARTs, EMTs or utility tokens); regulatory classification under the Financial Services Act 2019 and the GFSC Guidance Note on Scope of the DLT Framework is activity-based, turning on whether a business stores/transmits third-party value on a distributed ledger (DLT Provider track, Schedule 2 para 140) or provides non-custodial virtual asset exchange/arrangement services (VAA Provider track, Schedule 2 para 139A). At the private-law foundation, the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2026 (Act 2026-09), which received assent and commenced on publication on 23 March 2026 (s.2), confirms in s.3 that a thing—including a digital or electronic thing—is not prevented from being an object of personal property rights merely because it is neither a thing in possession nor a thing in action. For fund tokenisation, the Protected Cell Companies (Amendment) Act 2026 (Act 2026-20), published on 9 July 2026 and commenced on 30 July 2026 under LN 2026/294, establishes a statutory framework for tokenised cell shares and DLT share registers in protected cell companies operating as Experienced Investor Funds, subject to statutory requirements and prior GFSC approval. Older secondary media reporting (CoinDesk 2020) referring to a GFSC distinction between 'virtual assets' and 'virtual asset denominated instruments' (VADIs) and a restriction on counting internally generated tokens toward regulatory capital following a public token offering is not supported by an identified primary statutory or current GFSC guidance text and is treated as unverified non-binding commentary.