Swiss Financial Regulators Publish “Pretty Reasonable” ICO Guidelines
FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, yesterday published guidelines explaining to organisers and investors how existing financial legislation would be applied to initial coin offerings. The document also details the criteria by which the regulator will judge each fundraising effort. The aim is to dispel uncertainty in the space and should allow investors and organisers alike to act with greater confidence.
A press release accompanying the document stated that FINMA felt the clarity the official guidelines would provide were “important given the dynamic market and the high level of demand”.
Amidst the guidance, the Swiss regulators state that each ICO will be judged independently. There will be no “catch-all” regulation. They admit that “financial market law and regulation are not applicable to all ICOs”. Therefore the Swiss agency will consider the manner in which the tokens issued will be used when deciding which existing legislation should govern a coin offering.
They define tokens in three ways: Payment tokens, utility tokens, and asset tokens.
Payment tokens have no other purpose other than to provide a means of payment. They do not interact with specific applications in any unique way. For the purposes of regulation, they must comply with existing anti-money laundering legislation. They will not be treated as securities.
Utility tokens are intended to provide access to an application or service. There will be no regulation of these tokens. However, it seems unlikely that many pure utility tokens will exist.
Asset tokens are more like securities. As such, they fall under securities legislation. They represent assets in a more traditional sense. If a token provides dividends, it’s an asset token. Likewise, if it represents shares in a particular company. Asset tokens will also fall under civil law requirements. In Switzerland, this is covered by the Swiss Code of Obligations.
FINMA clearly state that hybrid tokens can also exist. From the above guidelines, it appears that most of the existing tokens issued by ICO will fall under more than one of the classifications.
They go on to state that they acknowledge the revolutionary potential of the technology behind ICOs and cryptocurrencies and state that they are participating in the federal government’s Blockchain/ICO Working Group. Finally, they reiterate their warning to investors about the highly volatile nature of the space.
The regulation seems to have been well received in the cryptocurrency community. The price of most tokens and coins have been increasing since the document was released. Particularly notable is ICO platform NEO’s surge in the last 24 hours. The “Chinese Ethereum” quickly added over $1 billion to their market cap according to Coinmarketcap.
Elsewhere, other signs highlighted that the news is welcome. Serial cryptocurrency entrepreneur Erik Voorhees Tweeted that he thought they were “pretty reasonable”:
Big news: Swiss financial regulator issues guidelines for ICOs and securities classification… And they’re pretty reasonable. ‘Crypto nation’ Switzerland issues guidelines to support market https://t.co/CaeGlujQ5G via @financialtimes #bitcoin #ethereum #blockchain
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) February 16, 2018
Such positive regulation out of Switzerland is a big deal. Whilst no one expected a harsh clampdown from the “Crypto Nation“, the clarity that the guidelines will bring to the space should help nurture, rather than stifle, creativity and innovation.
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XinFin ICO Enters Second Week, Announces Institutional Partnership
XinFin’s Hybrid Blockchain ICO was announced last week after launching minimum viable products and ongoing pilot projects with several institutions. The utility coin XDCE offering has now entered its second week.
XinFin, the first of its kind Hybrid blockchain platform is entering into the second week of the ICO for its utility coin XDCE. XDCE is an ERC 20 token that is also 1:1 swappable with the XDC that has utility in hosting masternodes as well as to be used on tradefinex.org platform for Global Trade and Finance beta platform.
“XinFin XDC Masternodes can float tokenized or non-tokenized private subnetworks which can be used by banks, utility companies, communities or enterprises for blockchain enabling and tokenizing their assets. XinFin network is a peer to peer contract platform running on stake based DPOS consensus which can use existing approved payment channels or use XDC as a settlement layer only through approved financial institutions. The architecture makes XinFin fully compliant with laws of the land.” said Karan Bharadwaj, CTO of XinFin.
“TradeFinex.org Platform is the first app launched on the XinFin’s hybrid blockchain platform aimed at bridging the $27 trillion infrastructure deficit globally. It is connecting buyers, suppliers, and financiers through its trusted network of trade associations, financial institutions, policymakers, and regulators,” he added.
XinFin launched the TradeFinex platform at second peer to peer Digital Asset summit organized by Assocham in India and extended the platform to over 450,000 enterprise members of Assocham. Amongst its institutional tie-ups are Global Youth Economic Summit by NM College group that extends the XinFin platform to over 35,000 students of various affiliated colleges. Singapore based Ramco Labs also announced to build hybrid blockchain solutions with XinFin on its XDC01 protocol for global supply chain finance. The upcoming major global expansion includes Canada and Sri Lanka to be announced in the coming weeks.
More information about XinFin is available on the platform’s official website: www.xinfin.org. The XinFin token sale is available at www.xinfin.io. The platform also has an active community on Telegram, Twitter, and Slack. To participate in the Slack community, interested participants can find the invite here.
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ZeroEdge.Bet Opens New Office in London
ZeroEdge.Bet, a start-up that is building a blockchain based online casino network, is expanding its reach and will be opening brand new offices in London. The move was prompted by the unprecedented growth of the business, ahead of the proposed ICO dates later this year.
The ZeroEdge team is extremely excited to meet fans and followers of the Zero Edge online casino network when their new offices open within the next few weeks. The team, comprising of a range of experts in their respective fields including online gaming, cryptocurrencies, marketing, support, and much more, have put out the welcome mat for gamblers in the United Kingdom.
“This is a great news for us and our community. We are delighted to have our new office in London. One of the reasons for opening an office in London was the access to the skilled job market. Blockchain experts, gambling industry executives, marketing gurus are all there. Therefore, will be looking to grow our team to help us with our development on every aspect of the business.” – said Adrian Casey ZeroEdge.Bet CEO
UK gambling market is one of the largest in the world.
United Kingdom gambling market size exceeds £14 Billion each year. Zero Edge will launch first blockchain based gambling sites in UK market just after ICO finishes and all Zerocoins are distributed publicly.
It is not by coincidence that Zero Edge has chosen London as one of their main centers of operation. Aside from the fact that London is one of the most popular cities in the world, with a vibrant melting pot of global cultures, it also happens to represent one of the largest online gambling markets in the world.
Residents of the UK love to gamble online and do so around the clock at various top online casinos aimed at the UK market. However, up until fairly recently, UK gamblers have been facing the very same problem as gamblers in other parts of the world – playing at online casinos where, quite frankly, the house edge is out of control!
This is another reason why Zero Edge has chosen London to open their cutting edge new offices, to begin to roll out their plan to absolutely upset the entire online gambling industry with their unique 0% house edge concept, a first in online casino gambling (and gambling in general).
What is Zero Edge and How Does It Work?
Zero Edge online casino network is a brand new, revolutionary way of presenting online casino games to gamblers all over the world. While the traditional online casino focuses on making millions and millions of pounds off of your losses, Zero Edge is doing something entirely new. By offering 0% edge games demand is created for Zerocoin, which raises its value. Profits are made not from players loses, but from increased Zerocoin value. This model will disrupt the online gambling industry. Zero Edge casino is able to offer a true, guaranteed 0% house edge, making online casino games truly fair for the first time ever!
Additionally, ZeroEdge will also provide with an opportunity for entities to build and operate their own games on the ZeroEdge platform. This will allow anyone with minimal technical knowledge to run their own games and earn from the increased value of the ZeroEdge token. The game developers will be rewarded with ZeroEdge tokens for their contribution to the network depending on various factors, e.g. the popularity of the game, UI/UX levels, etc. This feature will create a highly competitive environment and will ensure a wide variety of available games on the platform.
What You Need to Know About ICO and Dates
Pre-ICO is set to start on the 28th of February 2018, closing out on the 15th of March 2018. While there is no soft cap set during the Pre-ICO stage, the hard cap is set at 1000 ETH.
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