“Now forget Bitcoin altogether…. What is here to stay – what we’re left with – is a platform whereby how we perceive value will increasingly become more crucial to our growth as a species, eventually creating cultural and societal shifts that defy our limited analog imaginations.” Excerpt from the “What is the Internet of Value..and why it is one of the most powerful concepts in the world right now?”
“How Cryptofinance changes the world”, by Finance 2.0
At the Kunsthaus in Zurich, on a sunny day, not far away from CryptoValley; a diverse group of speakers shared their insights on CryptoFinance. The mix of incumbents experimenting, use cases from Fintechs, and insights from the broader ecosystem (lawyers, consultants, and consortiums); was great.
Rik Willard from Agentic Group, a New York based global membership-based consortium offering education, insights, and consultations on advanced concepts in Blockchain and DigitalCurrencies, offered the keynote. His broad perspective emphasized that we are living in the era of the Internet of Value, and that we unconsciously changing values. He urged us to switch to conscious re-examination of our perceptions of value. He proposed that we are co-creating culture 24/7. He called us all, Cultural producers. We tend to be focused only on transactions, but we need to shift to the world of Internet of Value, which is more focused on value rather than only transaction.
Luka Muller, partner at MME Compact a legal practice focused on digital currencies, conveyed his excitement as a transformed lawyer who is focused on the new challenges of the Smart contracts world, which undoubtedly has potential not only in financial markets. He shed light in the areas that need New Legal concepts, before becoming functional solutions to real world problems and before Regulators are able to wrap their hands around them. Luka’s pointed out that there are more questions that beg for answers around Smart contracts, than we imagine. Here is just a sample if these:
- Who is liable in smart contract? The developer, or the Issuer (he who makes it operational), or the infrastructure entity (he who makes it functional)?
- Where is the “pop-up” location of a smart contract?
- Are payments released from the escrow account tied to the smart contract, dividends or royalties for tax purposes?
- Should the issuance of a smart contract, be treated similar to the issuance of new shares from a regulatory perspective?
- Are Bits owned? Can bits be transferred and if yes, what are the governing laws?
New legal concepts are needed, and these will not be designed by an AI algorithm.
SIX shared how they are getting their feet wet in experimenting with blockchain technology within their equity clearing part of the business. SIX is currently, examining the potential application in designing permissioned distributed ledgers for the 120 member banks and the other European exchanges. Near real time settlement for equities being the targeted use case.
Along the same lines of a “pathfinder” project, UBS shared their developments. The UBS Keyclub program, which is a widely used royalty program with 40 merchants involved, is getting a blockchain-backed facelift. Swisscom and UBS are collaborating on this prototyping a mobile app that could lead to an ethereum based app, that for the UBS KeyClub process which currently, costly and time consuming (paper keypoint certificates are mailed, and payments to merchants are delayed).
TJ Saw of Ethcore, claiming to be the fastest and most secure way to interact with the Ethereum network, announced their partnership with the new Swiss consortium between SIX, Swisscom and Zurich KantonalBank. Ethcore is aiming to become the Decentralized web. They are currently running live $1 billion on their parity platform.
Niklas Nikolajsen, founder and CEO of Bitcoin Suisse, a 3yr old Fintech that started as a digital currency specialist, has already multiple use cases to be proud of. They run 6 Bitcoin ATM machines in Switzerland (soon to be 9); they offer trading and brokerage services; crypto currency mining. They will soon launch a bitcoin payment solution. They also offer training and consulting services. Bitcoin Suisse is not only generating revenues and paying taxes; but also is behind the capability that the City of Zug to accept payments in Bitcoin. Soon, Swiss banks will be offering a Bitcoin account capability to their clients, which will entirely be managed by Bitcoin Suisse.
Bitcoin ATMs in Switzerland (Source)
Daily Fintech Advisers provides strategic consulting to organizations with business and investment interests in Fintech & operates the Fintech Genome P2P Knowledge Network. Efi Pylarinou is a Digital Wealth Management thought leader.