Finma

FINMA publishes ICO guidelines In guidelines published today, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA sets out how it intends to apply financial market legislation in handling enquiries from ICO organisers. The guidelines also define the information FINMA requires to deal with such enquiries and the principles upon which it will base its responses, creating clarity for market participants. FINMA has seen a sharp increase in the number of initial coin offerings (ICOs) planned or executed in Switzerland and a corresponding increase in the number of enquiries about the applicability of regulation. ICOs are a digital blockchain-based form of public fund-raising for entrepreneurial purposes. Given a legal and regulatory framework with partially unclear applicability, FINMA is today publishing guidelines, which complement its earlier FINMA Guidance 04/2017, setting out how it intends to treat enquiries from ICO organisers. Creating transparency at this time is important given the dynamic market and the high level of demand.