The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has issued guidelines on betting services, setting out FINMA's regulatory practices, with a focus on protecting customers from the risk of bankruptcy of betting service providers.。

Bet services raise a series of questions about how to interpret the law relating to the custody of crypto assets。In particular, there is legal uncertainty as to whether pegged crypto assets are protected in the event of the bankruptcy of a pegged service provider.。The prerequisite for protection is that crypto assets must be ready for customers at all times。It is not clear whether this requirement has been met.。

FINMA's guidance aims to increase transparency in the treatment of betting services in financial market law。Pending further clarification on the issue of asset segregation in legislation or case law, and in the event of the insolvency of a regulated entity, under FINMA's current assessment, the crypto assets bet on will be segregated from the insolvency estate and returned to escrow account customers.。

In addition, if the regulated institution has implemented risk mitigation measures and informed customers of the risks in an appropriate manner, no capital requirements will be imposed on it。

The guidance also outlines the different forms of betting on crypto assets, describes the risks and lists the risk mitigation steps that regulators need to take.。

Bet involves a range of risks。In addition to legal uncertainty, there are a number of other risks, including:

• Technical risk of failure of calibration process;
• The risk of crypto assets being curtailed due to improper behavior of the validator node;
• Counterparty risk due to unclear legal status at the time of bankruptcy, which is more uncertain if it is entrusted to an institution outside Switzerland for custody or pricing;
• Market risk because if the unlocking process includes a lock-up or exit period, it may not be possible to sell collateralized crypto assets in a timely manner in a volatile market, resulting in delayed returns of frozen crypto assets。