Alexis Roussel - Pushing Back Against Regulatory Overreach: The Case of Bity vs. FINMA

Bity.com is one of the oldest crypto brokers in Switzerland (selling XMR on its ATMs). In front of the Federal Administrative Tribunal, it is suing the Swiss regulator FINMA for a claimed illegal implementation of two FATF rules, the identification limit of 1000 CHF per month (1) and the Travel Rule (2).

In both cases, FINMA went beyond what FATF requested, and implemented this through a soft power mechanism that removes the need for the parliament to intervene.

The talk will describe how FINMA operates and what is the status of the cases.

This case is novel, because it is the first crowdfunded, transparent case against the regulator pushed by the crypto-community.

All documents and the crowdfunding (also in XMR) are available here: btcpay.nymte.ch/apps/2aks2XSx8ogQFc2CPuKVben8KNcP/crowdfund