Switzerland’s financial landscape is set to witness a new era following the launch of the digital asset’s laws on February 1 2021. This is according to a financial report from top Swiss news platform swissinfo.ch in a report released today.
New Laws Place Spotlight on Crypto Industry
Switzerland passed the digital asset laws last year and is expected to be implemented in two phases. The first phase which pertains to company law reforms was launched on February 1 and will be followed by financial markets infrastructure regulations that will begin in August.
These laws are expected to herald the beginning of a fully regulated cryptocurrency and digital asset industry in Switzerland. The laws are comprehensive and cover extensive sectors within the crypto and digital asset sector. Crypto service providers are able to know where they stand and the risk involved in offering such services within the Swiss jurisdiction. It is expected that the new regulations will offer new benefits to the markets and could potentially lead to the introduction of new crypto-related financial products.
A Major Rush for Crypto Licenses
As expected, the new digital laws have created a major rush in the Swiss markets as financial companies have moved towards getting relevant licenses. Crypto Finance Group revealed today that it had received a securities house license from Swiss financial regulator FINMA. The license enables the brokerage to offer new digital securities including shares and other tokenized assets and collectibles.
Swiss banks SEBA and Sygnum are also making major moves and are among the forerunners, having received FINMA licenses in 2019. Sygnum recently tokenized a range of premium wines from Fine Wine Capital on its Desygnate blockchain platform that was launched last year. The Bank has also struck agreements to issue digital assets within the real estate and automobile industry.
SEBA meanwhile has been involved in the tokenization of shares. The Bank raised CHF20 million from investors last December and tokenized the share certificates into digital shares that can be traded on crypto exchanges. Apart from these three firms, other financial entities like the Swiss Digital Exchange (SDX), Bitcoin Suisse, Taurus, and Lykke have also applied for various licenses with FINMA. It will be interesting to see what effects the new laws have on the blockchain industry in the coming months.
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Ripple (XRP) price crashes over 40% following a failed pump attempt
XRP’s price crashed by over 40% as the traders’ pump attempt failed to push it above $1
The XRP community embarked on a coordinated attack to pump the cryptocurrency’s price higher. However, the pump only lasted for a few days, with XRP briefly reaching the $0.75 mark before losing momentum and crashing down.
The coordinated attack came following a similar move by Reddit members on the GameStop stock, pushing the stock to a new all-time high in the process. A telegram group of over 200,000 members called “Buy & Hold XRP” was created towards the end of last week to push the cryptocurrency to higher resistance levels.
XRP surged by more than 115% following the retail investors’ efforts, with the cryptocurrency erasing the losses recorded after the SEC lawsuit debacle. However, the group lost momentum, and the cryptocurrency crashed by more than 40%, currently trading at $0.37 per coin.
After reaching a new yearly high, some traders bought XRP in anticipation of a price pump, pushing the price higher. However, the traders are now on the wrong side after XRP sustained massive losses to return to its previous price level.
The Telegram group is still active, with some traders there blaming exchange downtimes for the price drop. XRP momentarily reclaimed its third place in the market following the attempted pump price by the community. However, it has lost its third place to Tether (USDT), while Polkadot (DOT) is closing in on XRP’s market cap.
XRP has been the fallout cryptocurrency since the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives for issuing and selling an unregistered security. The cryptocurrency has since struggled to reach the $0.5 mark as several exchanges delisted it to avoid sanctions from regulatory agencies.
Another cryptocurrency that enjoyed the recent coordinated rally from investors is Dogecoin (DOGE). The cryptocurrency surged by more than 1000% to reach a high of $0.0884 last week. Its rally briefly saw it enter the top ten list in terms of market cap. However, it has since lost steam, and it is currently trading at $0.03394 at the time of writing. Despite its decline, DOGE is still up by 310% over the past seven days, making it one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies last month.