# Switzerland

> Switzerland (FINMA · Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner): Crypto-friendly and strict on anonymity at once. Region: Europe. Restricts anonymity: Anonymity-enhancing assets or unattributed transfers are barred outright, or barred for regulated firms.

Part of the Soda Labs Privacy Hub regulation map, which reads the instruments
themselves rather than summarising the summaries: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation

## Key facts

- Entry type: Jurisdiction
- Region: Europe
- Subject: Crypto-friendly and strict on anonymity at once
- Authority: FINMA · Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner
- Stance on on-chain confidentiality: Restricts anonymity. Anonymity-enhancing assets or unattributed transfers are barred outright, or barred for regulated firms.
- Tags: proof of ownership, Guidance 02/2019, CHF 1,000, stricter than FATF
- Canonical page: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/jur-switzerland

## What it actually says

A useful corrective to the assumption that a crypto-friendly jurisdiction is permissive about anonymity. The two are unrelated, and Switzerland proves it. Nothing in Swiss law bans privacy coins, and the regulator treats anonymity as a risk factor rather than a prohibited property. But since 2019 supervised institutions have only been able to move tokens to an external wallet where that wallet belongs to their own identity-verified customer, with ownership demonstrated by technical proof. There is no minimum value and no carve-out for unregulated wallets, which makes it stricter than both the FATF standard and the EU rule that followed. The practical effect is that regulated Swiss venues are closed to anonymous self-custody, by supervisory practice rather than statute.

## The instruments that matter

- **FINMA Guidance 02/2019, 26 August 2019**: supervised institutions may send or receive tokens to an external wallet only where the wallet belongs to their own identity-verified customer, with ownership proven by technical means
- **Stricter than FATF**: no de minimis and no exception for unregulated wallets, which is a higher bar than the global standard or the EU travel rule
- **Article 51a AMLO-FINMA**: a CHF 1,000 identification threshold for occasional virtual currency transactions since 1 January 2021, aggregated over 30 days rather than per day
- **No privacy coin ban**: FINMA treats blockchain anonymity as an elevated money-laundering risk, not a prohibited feature

## Sources

- [FINMA Guidance 02/2019](https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2019/08/20190826-mm-kryptogwg/)
- [FINMA crypto services overview](https://www.finma.ch/en/documentation/dossier/dossier-fintech/auf-einen-blick-aufstellung-der-krypto-dienstleistungen/)

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