Zug, 27.06.2019

Distinguished US, UK and Swiss bankers attend Crypto Valley Conference

 

The Crypto Valley Conference took place in Zug earlier this week with a number of prominent bankers from overseas present.

 

These included Martin Antoine from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York (on the left in the photograph), Michael Kumhof of the Bank of England (second from the right) and Domenico Gammaldi of the Bank of Italy (on the right) as well as Thomas Moser of the Swiss National Bank (second from the left) and Harald Stieger of the EU Commission (centre) who doubled as presenter.

 

 

Others present included 1,200 from some 400 companies active in the crypto currency business and blockchain technology worldwide, all meeting up in a warehouse near the station on a day when the temperature rose to 30°C, and when many would have preferred a location nearer the lake to benefit from a cool breeze.

 

What was striking was that, at this conference, not only were companies already using blockchain technology represented, but also representatives of more “traditional” companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Swisscom, Zurich (insurance), SAP Schweiz, Postfinance, the SIX Group and Vontobel bank. As to those involved in crypto business, Etherium, Bitcoin Suisse, Neo, Ripple, Luxoft, Seba Crypto, Sygnum and Dfinity were all represented.

 

Speaking in his capacity as head of the Zug-based CV VC blockchain investment company, Marcus Ruch mentioned that, these days, there was hardly any major company, traditional or otherwise, not involved in blockchain technology in one way or another, as Daniel Haudenschild, the chairman of the Crypto Valley Association added that crypto and blockchain applications were now widely becoming accepted mainstream and this was a good thing, the larger players now seeking a base in Switzerland, not least Facebook which plans to set up its own global currency, Libra, from Geneva  in 2020. “That Facebook has chosen Switzerland for this is fantastic,” he said.

 

As to the so-called Crypto winter, which the industry had experienced and which had led to the value of bitcoin falling considerably, he felt this benefited the industry as he regarded it as a sort of “purification”. “Now all this hype, and much of the nonsense talked about it, has gone, thank goodness,” he said. “Now the industry is on the cusp of a new era where things are really getting interesting and people can start working on mass-related solutions,” he enthused. Indeed, as reported in today’s Times, the value of Bitcoin has surged to an 18-month high.

 

In a subsequent discussion about all these developments, not least Facebook’s launch of Libra, Thomas Moser of the SNB said he was watching these interesting plans in a relaxed way. As to how the regulators would regard Libra when it was launched in 2020 remains to be seen, the success of the project dependent on this.

 

Of note on this is a comment by Maxine Waters, the Democrat-party chair of the Financial Services Committee of the US House of Representatives, who said that Facebook’s project should be halted until approved by the authorities. “We cannot just allow the company to go to Switzerland and set up a currency to compete with the dollar,” she insisted.