- A motion to introduce new crypto regulations has passed in the Lower House of the Swiss parliament
- The motion will have crypto exchanges recognized as financial institutions
- The motion was brought forward due to concerns about crime
Crypto has become virtually impossible for world powers to ignore and this became evident as on March 21, 2019, news broke that Switzerland’s lower House of Parliament has voted in favor of introducing crypto-focused regulations.
While the vote was certainly a progressive one, it was not a unanimous one as 99 members of parliament supported the motion, 83 were not in support and 10 abstained from voting.
This comes only a few weeks after New Hampshire and Japan passed some new blockchain and crypto-focused laws of their own.
What This Means
With this new vote going through, more progress can be set in motion to properly define and oversee the crypto industry in Switzerland, should the upper House of Parliament approve.
One of the key steps in doing so is the recognition of cryptocurrency exchanges as financial institutions. By doing so, they will then be overseen by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
The motion itself was brought forward by Giovanni Merlini, the member of parliament for Tessin, who has previously stated that he believes that cryptocurrencies can be used by criminals for various acts such as money laundering and as such, cannot be left in an unregulated state.
The Need For Regulations
Switzerland, like many other places in Europe, has made a great effort to be as crypto-friendly as possible and their region of Zug is popularly called the crypto valley due to the flourishing of the industry there.
Despite all of this, it is interesting to note that Giovanni Merlini places emphasis on the fact that cryptocurrencies could be used for crime. This goes to who that regardless of all the obvious benefits of cryptocurrency, world powers are aware of the crime that is taking place with the due of crypto and this, inevitably, affects their decisions made with regards to the crypto industry.
Thankfully, this led to Merlini advocating for better laws in place rather than a blanket ban of crypto itself.
Hopefully, the motion sees similar favor in the upper House of Parliament and the laws that are passed as a result are of benefit the industry within and outside Switzerland.