Our CEO thoughts on FINMA’s new ICO guidelines

In February 2018, Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA published guidelines which acknowledge ICOs in a formal capacity, saying that issued tokens should be treated as securities and subject to the “same laws protecting investors and the integrity of the [traditional] financial system.”

Our CEO Alexis Roussel offered his thoughts about these new guidelines to Crowdfund Insider, telling the publication that FINMA has set the world standard for the global cryptocurrency economy and provided a solid framework for other regulators to follow.

Alexis said, “for us at Bity, as a cryptocurrency broker of payment tokens, the ICO guidelines provide clarity about which cryptocurrencies we can offer on our platform without the fear of them being considered as securities.”

“The fact that FINMA has also stated that ‘Cryptocurrencies give rise to no claims on their issuer’ is very important because it basically means cryptocurrencies as payment tokens has to be on an open sourced blockchain,” he added.

CryptoSlate, a leading cryptocurrency publication, also quoted Alexis in their analysis of the Swiss financial authority’s latest move, telling them that “the rules are so clear now and we’re excited that FINMA has recognised cryptocurrencies as part of the new financial system.”

We will always remain a fully-regulated and compliant with the latest AML and KYC laws. As more financial authorities around the world begin to pay attention to cryptocurrencies, we hope they’ll follow in Switzerland’s footsteps and allow the industry to grow and innovate.

Read the Crowdfund Insider article here and the CryptoSlate article here.