Yesterday FINMA – Switzerland’s independent financial-markets regulator – issued a press release in which they describe in detail what organizers of ICOs can expect. FINMA’s role in the Swiss finance world taken from their website:

“When FINMA commenced its activities on 1 January 2009, the Swiss parliament granted it a greater degree of independence than its three predecessor institutions. The institutional, functional and financial independence FINMA enjoys enables it to exercise effective supervision over Switzerland’s financial industry.”

The press release holds enough details and is surprisingly unbiased towards the industry. FINMA has acknowledged that there is a sharply increasing number in initial coin offerings (ICOs) recently, they also label them as “a digital blockchain-based from of public fund-raising for entrepreneurial purposes“.

We summed up the main topics of the guideline:

Each ICO has to be evaluated based on its own merit: case by case basis evaluation by viewing the ICO design

FINMA’s focus is on the functionality of the token: They recognize three types of tokens. Payment tokens, Utility tokens and Asset tokens. They also state that hybrid functionality is possible.

Anti-money laundering and securities regulations strategy: KYC regulations, Fair trading and product/service information, determinate the type of ICO from the above mentioned cathegories

Blockchain technology: FINMA aknowledges the innovative nature of blockchain technolgies, thus instead of blocking them they are making it fair and regulated. Involvement and cooperation with government sponsored Blockchain/ICO working group is progressing.

The full document can be viewed here.