Breaking: Switzerland’s Financial Regulator Approves First Ever Crypto Fund

Switzerland’s financial watchdog Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) on Wednesday approved the country’s first-ever dedicated crypto fund. The new crypto fund would be called the Crypto Market Index Fund  FINMA has categorized the crypto fund under “other funds for alternative investments.”

The Swiss regulatory watchdog said even though the crypto fund would be regulated under the existing provisions of law, it has been done in a technology-neutral way to make way for innovation.

“In order to facilitate serious innovation, FINMA applies the existing provisions of financial market laws in a consistently technology-neutral way,”

In order to mitigate risks associated with the volatile crypto market, the new crypto fund would primarily invest in those assets which have a high trading volume. Along with that, all crypto transactions would only be facilitated via established counterparties and platforms that are based in a member country of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and are subject to corresponding anti-money laundering  (AML) regulations.

Crypto Adoption on the Rise

Crypto adoption in 2021 has broken many records as it saw participation from not just institutional investors but governments alike. El Salvador made Bitcoin ($BTC) a legal tender while Paraguay, Argentina, and Panama have shown interest in adopting Bitcoin as well.

Major financial institutions including some of the former critics like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs have gone back on their statements to launch crypto or Bitcoin-centered fund for investors amid high demand. More importantly, some of the biggest Wall Street names are also building and investing in crypto mining infrastructure like the world’s largest asset manager Blackrock.

The US city of Miami has built its own crypto coin called Miami Coin which works on top of the Bitcoin infrastructure and mines a token every 10 minutes just like BTC. These funds are used by the governor towards development activity in the city.