Dominika 

NESTARCOVA

Dominika Nestarcova is a full-time research associate at the Centre for Banking and Finance Law, NUS since December 2017. Prior to joining the centre, Dominika graduated from the University of St Andrews in Arabic and International Relations (2014) and completed her LLB at the Queen Mary University of London (2016) and her LLM at the National University of Singapore in Corporate and Financial Services Law (2017).

Selected Publication

• Dominika Nestarcova, A Critical Appraisal of Initial Coin Offerings (Brill 2019)

Legal risks in distributed ledger technologies and regulation of Initial Coin Offerings in Singapore
Dominika’s current research targets the technical elements of distributed ledger technologies and associated legal and regulatory issues, with a specific sectoral focus on financial services and capital markets. Her research examines the legality of smart contracts and the future of traditional contractual agreements in light of Singapore’s pursuit to become a Smart Nation.
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) emerged in 2017 as a novel form of funding, whereby start-up companies issue blockchain-based assets (‘tokens’) to the public in return for a payment in cryptocurrencies or fiat currency. The advent of ICOs mushrooming worldwide promises to democratize financing by granting access to wider public, yet the unregulated space in which ICOs operate, opens up a Pandora’s Box of investment risks. Within this context, this research sets out to analyse the legal implications of conducting an ICO as well as the regulatory approaches to developing a framework that balances innovation and investor protection.