Cryptocurrency and ICO: Global role of Switzerland
According to a new study published for the conference Block Show Europe 2018, Switzerland is the number one in Europe for companies that want to deal in blockchain. On the list of the best states to run a blockchain company, Gibraltar and Malta are right after Switzerland as second and third place. The study was conducted in 48 European countries examined under the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Regulations for cryptocurrencies as payment instruments and their taxation frameworks.
Switzerland is known as a country that is good for developing cryptocurrencies due to its “crypto valley” in the canton of Zug and also because investors from the crypto sphere do not pay taxes there. Gibraltar attracted 200 ICOS before the planned opening of the Gibraltar Blockchain exchange, while Malta, also known as the “Blockchain Island”, has received large crypto stocks such as Binance and OKEX .
One of the seven members of the presidency of the Swiss states in the transcript published by the Federal Ministry of Economy, Education and Research on June 12 said that blockchain would one day “enter into all pores of our economy”.
Swiss Federal Chancellor Johan N Schneider-amman said during a speech at the Crypto Valley conference in Bern: “Almost no one doubts that the blocker will penetrate the entire economy.”
Sirin Labs, a Swiss smartphone maker, will unveil a blockchain phone in November this year. In December 2017, Sirin Labs received $157.8 million for the project during the Initial Coin Offering (ICO), with $110 million received within the first 24 hours.
Sirin Labs also introduced a privacy-friendly smartphone in 2016, with a market price of $16,000. A new blockchain phone, called Finney, should go to the market with an expected price of $1,000, said Sirin Labs for Coin telegraph.
Based on the Android system, Finney will work on the SIRIN operating system and will have an offline crypto wallet, a Tokens Conversion Service (TCS), and a multiblockchain store of decentralised applications (Dapp). The phone will be manufactured and developed by Foxconn Technology from Taiwan, the main maker of Apple, Google, Cisco, Huawei and Amazon.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has announced that it has launched a case against the issuer of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of Envion AG. In a press release issued by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, it was revealed that the regulator has instituted a compulsory lawsuit against Envion AG
FINMA said that the regulator is “proof that an ICO company can violate the law on the financial market.” The announcement states that in the course of the procedure, it will focus, in particular, on possible violations of banking regulations as a result of potentially unauthorised deposit with an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for the EVN token.
The publication explains: “According to FINMA’S research, in the context of their ICOS, Envion AG received funding of about 100 million Francs (about $100.6 million) from over 30,000 investors in exchange for EVN tokens, and issued for bonds.”
The regulator explains that the process focuses on “possible violations of banking laws and potentially unauthorised acceptance of public deposits” during the sale of a token.
The Envion AG document contains a legal waiver of the law, which states that neither the Swiss FINMA, nor the Securities and Exchange Commission, nor any other party in the regulatory body has approved the token investment.
On the disclaimer is added that “the EVN token can be classified as securities, because it is right for Token owners to profit from mining. This token, as such, is subject to certain restrictions in accordance with the law on securities. According to these rules, ICO Envion limits access for US citizens and green card holders as they do not belong to the category of “accredited investors”.
While FINMA refuses to comment on the case until the proceedings are completed, the Swiss regulatory body provides a robust and differentiated framework for ICO in a version published by FINMA in mid-february this year, a month after Envion concluded collection of funds.
The previous manual for domestic ICO projects was released by the regulator in September 2017 and set the precedence that sales token situations will be considered “case-bycase” — but it has already been stated that the ICO “generally requires” a banking licence to accept public deposits.