Adoption for cryptocurrency in Switzerland continues to gain traction as local financial authorities issue more regulatory approvals for cryptocurrency investment instruments.
The Swiss Financial Markets Authority (FINMA) has approved the cryptocurrency index fund as “the first cryptocurrency fund under Swiss law”, which was officially announced on 29 September.
The fund was founded by the Swiss asset manager Crypto Finance and is operated by the investment management company PvB Pernet von Ballmoos AG under the auspices of the regulated manager SEBA Bank AG.
FINMA noted that the newly approved fund is limited to qualified investors, mainly investments in cryptocurrencies or digital assets “based on blockchain technology or distributed ledger.”
The regulator said that the cryptocurrency market index fund can only invest in leading cryptocurrencies with “a sufficiently large trading volume.” According to Crypto Finance, the fund will track the results of Crypto Market Index 10, a product operated by SIX Swiss Exchange.
Crypto Finance notes that “The goal of Digital Currency Market Index 10 is to reliably measure the performance of the largest liquid crypto assets and tokens and provide an investment benchmark for this asset class.”
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Finma added that investors will only be required to invest through counterparties in the FATF member country and subject to relevant regulations for money laundering.
At the same time as the fund’s approval, FINMA also approved SEBA Bank AG as an institutional service, and gave the company a CISA license. The body has previously officially authorized the SIX Swiss Exchange to launch a digital trading floor and CSD based on distributed accounting technology in early September.
