coinquora.com
- Switzerland’s financial regulators approve the country’s first fund.
- This will be the first time a fund investing primarily in crypto assets is approved.
- The newly approved fund is restricted to qualified investors.
It’s all good on the Swiss side! The Switzerland authorities continue to grant more regulatory approvals for crypto investment. This time, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) announced it has approved the first crypto fund.
FINMA approved the Crypto Market Index Fund. Though, the fund is only limited to qualified investors. Also, the fund was classified under “other funds for alternative investments” that have particular risks.
FINMA asserts in a press release,
In order to facilitate serious innovation, FINMA applies the existing provisions of financial market laws in a consistently technology-neutral way,” it added, thus ensuring that new technologies are not used to circumvent existing rules.
This is the first time FINMA will approve a fund that invests mainly in assets based on blockchain technology.
According to FINMA, as a result of those particular risks, giving any clearance on a crypto asset fund comes with specific terms. In the same vein, investments done through established platforms that are based in a member country of the Financial Action Task Force are subject to the same anti-laundering regulations.
Additionally, FINMA stated that the Crypto Market Index Fund may only invest in top cryptocurrencies with large trading volumes. Even more, the fund will help track the performance of the Crypto Market Index 10.
The objective of the Crypto Market Index 10 is to reliably measure the performance of the largest, liquid crypto assets and tokens and to provide an investable benchmark for this asset class
For clarity, the Crypto Market Index 10 is a product administered by Swiss exchange SIX. To add on, a few days back, FINMA announced their approval for regulated Swiss exchange SIX to launch a digital asset marketplace and central securities depository built on blockchain technology.
Earlier, we reported that FINMA approved SEBA Bank as an institutional-grade custodian service by granting the firm a CISA license.