The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority has issued an ICO-related press release today. The press release contains FINMA Guidance #04/2017

Moreover, FINMA is investigating a number of ICO cases to see if regulations were broken. As a result, bans and fines will follow.

FINMA states that they recognize the large potential of the blockchain technology, but even though the way every ICO is set up they may be breaking regulation in the following fields:

– money laundering & terrorist financing

– banking law

– securities trading

– collective investment schemes.

The press release states that ICOs are in essense initial public offerings that businesses use to raise capital. Even if they are unregulated, based on the technology neutrality principle FINMA sees a lot of resemblance with IPOs and other conventional financial market transactions.

FINMA warns potential investors to treat ICOs with maximum care as there is a lot of fraudulent activity in that area.

Unfortunately, too many ICOs are either scams or shitcoins created with the sole purpose of pumping up their value and dumping them in exchange for stable cryptocurrencies.

In terms of the larger picture a possible crackdown on ICOs will probably cause another Bitcoin dip, which would be a great time to buy. What do you think? Let us know in the comments, we approve them all.

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