Репост из: lawless.tech
Meanwhile, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has issued a set of criteria that everyone who holds an ICO should heed.
In the guidelines (https://goo.gl/Q9mpn9), the authority clearly separates the church from the state and finally brings about the clarity all disruptors of the world have been longing for.
Here’s what it’s all about:
1. Your ICO isn’t necessarily subject to regulation. It all depends on the nature of your tokens and the inherent design of the campaign. FINMA makes its best to be fair, and will review each case individually.
2. FINMA describes three kinds of tokens that will be treated differently. They are payment tokens (which are in fact cryptocurrencies), utility tokens (which grant their holders access to an application or a service), and asset tokens (which are in fact securities).
3. If your ICO sells payment tokens, you’ll have to comply with AML regulations.
4. If it’s about utility tokens, you’re in the clear as long as they don’t act as securities. It means that their only function is to confer digital access rights to a certain application or service, and, which is very important, the tokens have to be used that way from the very beginning.
5. Asset tokens are similar to securities in FINMA’s opinion. Therefore, the securities laws are fully applicable here, as well as civil law requirements.
6. FINMA also emphasizes that lots of ICOs actually take hybrid forms. For instance, they note, AML regulations may apply to utility tokens if they are used as a means of payment, or intended to have said functionality.
In the guidelines (https://goo.gl/Q9mpn9), the authority clearly separates the church from the state and finally brings about the clarity all disruptors of the world have been longing for.
Here’s what it’s all about:
1. Your ICO isn’t necessarily subject to regulation. It all depends on the nature of your tokens and the inherent design of the campaign. FINMA makes its best to be fair, and will review each case individually.
2. FINMA describes three kinds of tokens that will be treated differently. They are payment tokens (which are in fact cryptocurrencies), utility tokens (which grant their holders access to an application or a service), and asset tokens (which are in fact securities).
3. If your ICO sells payment tokens, you’ll have to comply with AML regulations.
4. If it’s about utility tokens, you’re in the clear as long as they don’t act as securities. It means that their only function is to confer digital access rights to a certain application or service, and, which is very important, the tokens have to be used that way from the very beginning.
5. Asset tokens are similar to securities in FINMA’s opinion. Therefore, the securities laws are fully applicable here, as well as civil law requirements.
6. FINMA also emphasizes that lots of ICOs actually take hybrid forms. For instance, they note, AML regulations may apply to utility tokens if they are used as a means of payment, or intended to have said functionality.