Swiss Digital Asset Exchange Regulatory Tracker: FINMA Licence Status 2025

FINMA’s Regulatory Framework for Exchanges and VASPs

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority does not operate a dedicated “crypto exchange licence.” Instead, FINMA applies its existing regulatory toolkit — banking licences, securities dealer licences, fund management licences, and the SRO (self-regulatory organisation) framework for financial intermediaries — to digital asset businesses based on the economic function they perform rather than the technological means by which they perform it.

This function-based approach, articulated clearly in FINMA’s 2019 guidance on blockchain and ICOs and its 2023 updated crypto guidance, means that the correct licence for a digital asset business depends on what that business actually does rather than what it calls itself. An entity that holds client assets and executes trades against them functions as a bank. An entity that executes client orders in securities (which may include certain tokens) functions as a securities dealer. An entity that simply matches buyers and sellers without holding funds or securities may fall under the less burdensome SRO framework.

The consequence is a regulatory landscape where Switzerland’s digital asset venues operate under a patchwork of different licence types — a complexity that reflects the diversity of business models in the Swiss market but also creates analytical challenges for institutional participants seeking to understand counterparty regulatory standing.

Exchange and Venue Regulatory Status Table

Note: SRO-supervised financial intermediaries (Bity, Relai under VQF) are not directly supervised by FINMA for day-to-day operations but must comply with FINMA ordinances via their SRO membership. SRO VQF (Verein zur Qualitätssicherung von Finanzdienstleistungen) is FINMA-recognised for financial intermediary supervision.

SDX’s Unique DLT Trading Facility Licence

SIX Digital Exchange holds a licence category that no other entity in Switzerland currently possesses: a DLT Trading Facility licence under the DLT Act of 2021. This licence category was created specifically to accommodate infrastructure for DLT-based securities trading, providing SDX with the legal certainty to operate a securities settlement system where finality is achieved through DLT-based mechanisms rather than traditional CSD (central securities depository) book entries.

The DLT Trading Facility licence imposes requirements substantially more demanding than a securities dealer licence — SDX must maintain its own CCP (central counterparty clearing) capabilities, ensure systemically appropriate risk management, and meet the same standards that FINMA applies to financial market infrastructure. This positions SDX not as an exchange in the conventional sense but as a regulated market infrastructure, placing it in the same regulatory tier as SIX Swiss Exchange itself.

When Does a Crypto Exchange Become a Securities Dealer?

The most important and frequently misunderstood regulatory question in the Swiss digital asset market is: when does a crypto exchange’s activity bring it within the securities dealer framework, requiring a FINMA securities dealer licence?

FINMA’s analysis turns on whether the assets being traded qualify as “securities” under Swiss financial market law. Under FINMA’s function-based approach, tokens may constitute securities if they represent ownership rights or claims against an issuer (equity-like or debt-like structures) and are issued or traded in standardised form to the public. Bitcoin and Ether are generally not classified as securities by FINMA; they are payment tokens. However, many DeFi governance tokens, equity-like tokens, and utility tokens with issuer relationships may well qualify as securities.

An exchange that facilitates client orders in what FINMA classifies as securities tokens — whether or not the exchange has formally analysed this question — is potentially operating as a securities dealer without a licence if it has not registered under that framework. This creates ongoing compliance risk for exchanges with broad token listings. SwissBorg and Lykke have both obtained securities dealer licences to manage this risk proactively, covering their token listing universes within a regulated framework.

Travel Rule: Article 47a Banking Ordinance

Switzerland implemented FATF Travel Rule requirements for virtual asset service providers through Article 47a of the Banking Ordinance (BankO), which entered into full force on 1 January 2023. The Travel Rule requires that Swiss-domiciled VASPs transmit originator and beneficiary information alongside crypto transfers above CHF 1,000 to or from other VASPs.

Key operational requirements under Article 47a:

Originator information: Full legal name, account identifier, physical address or national identity number.

Beneficiary information: Full legal name and account identifier.

Data transmission: Information must be transmitted to the receiving VASP simultaneously with the transfer, not retrospectively.

Counterparty verification: VASPs must verify that receiving entities are themselves registered VASPs before transmitting data. Transfers to unhosted wallets require additional documentation in excess of CHF 1,000.

The practical implementation of Travel Rule compliance has relied substantially on third-party VASP identification services (Notabene, Sygna Bridge, Shyft) that maintain registries of known VASPs and facilitate secure data transmission. Swiss exchanges have generally implemented these services, though the absence of mandatory registration databases for all jurisdictions means that counterparty identification remains an ongoing operational challenge.

FINMA’s 2023 Updated Crypto Guidance

FINMA published updated guidance on the regulatory treatment of crypto assets in 2023, clarifying several areas of ongoing ambiguity:

Staking services: FINMA clarified that staking services provided by FINMA-supervised institutions are permissible under existing banking and securities dealer frameworks, provided appropriate disclosures are made to clients regarding risks. Staking rewards must be treated consistently with tax and accounting requirements.

DeFi interaction: FINMA noted that participation in decentralised finance protocols raises complex questions that depend on the specific protocol architecture and the institution’s role. FINMA-supervised entities must conduct their own legal analysis before interacting with DeFi protocols in a client-facing capacity.

NFTs: Non-fungible tokens are generally not securities unless they confer rights against an issuer, but may be subject to AML rules if their primary function is as a medium of exchange.

Stablecoins: Stablecoins that are fiat-pegged and hold reserves in Switzerland may be subject to banking or e-money licensing requirements depending on their operational structure. FINMA issued specific guidance distinguishing payment stablecoins from investment stablecoins.

Cross-Border Impact: Swiss Exchanges and MiCA

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, fully operative from December 2024, creates a material cross-border compliance question for Swiss digital asset venues. Switzerland is not an EU member state; FINMA-licensed Swiss entities are “third-country” providers under MiCA’s framework.

The practical implication: a FINMA-licensed Swiss exchange seeking to serve EU retail customers must either establish a MiCA-licensed EU subsidiary, rely on reverse solicitation (the client approaches the Swiss entity without solicitation), or restrict EU retail services. For existing institutional relationships with EU professional clients established prior to MiCA’s transition period, the picture is more complex and subject to national-level transitional arrangements in individual EU member states.

For Swiss exchanges with primarily institutional client bases — Sygnum, AMINA, Bitcoin Suisse — the immediate practical impact is limited. Their EU institutional clients generally qualify as professional clients under MiCA and the Third-Country Firm provisions provide a pathway. The challenge is more acute for SwissBorg, which has a material EU retail user base and will need to navigate MiCA compliance for that segment through its EU-licensed entities.

Upcoming Regulatory Changes

FINMA Circular on Operational Risk (2025 revision): Expected to impose enhanced requirements for digital asset businesses on technology risk management, outsourcing of custody infrastructure, and business continuity planning. Will materially affect exchanges using third-party custody infrastructure.

Swiss Financial Market Infrastructure Act (FMIA) DLT amendments: Further technical amendments to implement SDX’s regulatory framework more robustly are anticipated through 2025–2026, including provisions for DLT-based securities settlement cross-border recognition.

Swiss-EU equivalence discussions: Switzerland and the EU remain in discussions on financial market equivalence. A breakthrough on equivalence could materially improve access for Swiss-licensed entities to EU markets, though the political timeline remains uncertain.

FATF 2025 Mutual Evaluation: Switzerland faces its FATF mutual evaluation in 2025, which will include assessment of VASP AML/CFT compliance. Strong Travel Rule implementation is expected to be a positive finding; the evaluation may result in FINMA guidance adjustments in response to any identified gaps.

The Swiss regulatory landscape for digital asset exchanges is among the most developed and rigorously enforced globally. Its primary disadvantage — the absence of single-market access to the EU — is shared by no other comparable financial centre. Whether Swiss-EU regulatory cooperation will progress to address this structural issue remains the defining regulatory question for Switzerland’s digital asset market over the next five years.

Donovan Vanderbilt is a contributing editor at ZUG TRADING. Regulatory status information is based on public FINMA records, company disclosures, and legal analysis. Readers should obtain independent legal advice for compliance decisions. This article is informational and does not constitute legal or compliance advice.