Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) publishes ICO guidelines

In a document published on February 16th, Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) publishes the guidelines on how it intends to treat enquiries from ICO organisers. Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is a system for money raising from public.

This guidelines are complementary to 2017 guidelines and define ICO’s in three groups: payment ICO’s, utility ICO’s, and asset ICO. Related to this, types of token that companies are issuing are also categorised as: payment tokens, utility tokens and asset tokens. FINMA emphasized that ICO are not under the existing financial law and regulations and that every ICO enquiry should be decided on an individual merits. FINMA reminded investors that many ICO products are subject to numerous uncertainties, and stated a support for the further implementation of the blockchain development and the work of Federal Government Working Group on Blockchain and ICO.