The Swiss financial regulator has released new guidelines for digital currencies, which will define some digital tokens in ICO projects as securities.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) said that the current sharp increase in the number of ICO projects launched in Switzerland has led to more and more people asking the regulator about relevant regulations. In order to clarify the current "partially unclear" situation, the regulator issued new guidelines, hoping to further regulate the development of Swiss ICO projects.

FINMA stated:

"Due to market dynamics, and increased demand, it is critical to establish transparency norms at this time."

It is worth noting that the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority will adopt a "case by case" approach to determine the supervision of digital tokens. resemblance.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority revealed that when evaluating ICO projects, they will focus on "the economic function and purpose of digital tokens", among which the main factors are "the purpose of digital tokens and whether they can be traded, or negotiable.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority has divided digital tokens into three categories (of course, some types of digital tokens may overlap), and different types of digital tokens will have different regulatory constraints. These three types of digital tokens include: payment digital tokens, utility digital tokens, and asset digital tokens – the last of which will be classified as a security product.

FINMA stated:

“Asset-type digital tokens will be considered securities, which means that digital tokens of this type will be subject to securities law, as well as civil law requirements under the Swiss Code of Obligations.”

Mark Branson, chief executive of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, said that while blockchain technology is considered in Switzerland to have "financial market innovation potential," ICO projects cannot simply bypass the regulatory framework . In addition, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority also stated that they previously judged the legality of ICO projects based on their compliance with the banking and securities laws enacted last September.