The Swiss Crypto Valley celebrates 10 years of history. Cheers to many more!

By Frank Pagano

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The cornerstone for Switzerland's Crypto Valley was laid out in Zug, Switzerland, exactly ten years ago. It developed into one of the world's most important, dynamic, and regulation-friendly locations. Today, the Swiss Crypto Valley, which covers all of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, is home to over a thousand companies, with almost six thousand employees. What started small and, for sure, unspectacular ten years ago in Zug, developed into a unique success story: the world known Crypto Valley.

Thanks to the trusting interplay between politics, science and regulation, Switzerland was able to create the necessary legal certainty for a thriving ecosystem around blockchain at an early stage. One of the first and most important players in Zug is CV VC. The company contributed significantly to building the blockchain ecosystem and is one of the leading investors investing in early stage blockchain startups. Its portfolio now includes 59 investments in 12 countries. "CV VC has a huge network and brings investors, startups, companies, authorities and universities from all over the world together," says Mathias Ruch, founder and CEO of CV VC. With CV Labs, CV VC promotes the global ecosystem. A successful concept that has already been launched in Vaduz, Berlin, Lisbon and Cape Town.

It is remarkable that many of the world's leading protocols such as the Cardano Foundation and the Solana Foundation, but also Ethereum, Tezos, Web3 Foundation or Dfinity have settled in Switzerland since 2014. Protocols are comparable to the well-known operating systems from the traditional world like Windows, Linux, iOS. Applications are built and new business models are developed on these platforms. They are creating the infrastructure of the future here. Many projects have now invested substantial resources in research and development. This shows that Crypto Valley stands for innovation, quality, and belief in the future. Moreover, Crypto Valley represents the renewal and further development of the financial center. For example, Bitcoin Suisse was created in the Crypto Valley in 2013. In addition, more and more regulated, relevant, and internationally active financial service providers such as SEBA and Sygnum settled in Switzerland in recent years. These were the world's first crypto banks to receive a banking license from the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) in 2019. Another Swiss world premiere is called 21Shares, the first double unicorn from the Crypto Valley. The company launched the first Bitcoin ETP on the Zurich Stock Exchange in 2018 because no other regulator had the courage and foresight to approve this innovation.

In the field of blockchain gaming, Switzerland also attracted pioneering companies. One example is Dacoco, the developer and distributor of the largest play-to-earn blockchain game "Alien Worlds", which chose Switzerland as the optimal location and established its headquarters in Zug. These are all important foundations for creating something new. This, for example, includes Plan B, which aims to make Lugano the world's most crypto and bitcoin-friendly city. But Zug also wants to invest further and is planning an associated institute for blockchain research. The government council of Zug is willing to participate in the development costs of the "Blockchain Zug - Joint Research Initiative,"" a joint innovative project between the University of Lucerne and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, with a total of forty million Swiss Francs, over a period of five years.

Frank Pagano is an experienced Business Leader, with 20 years of Sales & Marketing in CPG, Fashion and Tech. He is based in Zurich, Switzerland. He founded Italytime, a non-profit (more precisely 'loss') company based in NYC and has been collaborating with Il Sole 24 Ore on the CEO Confidential project for the past two years.

https://italytime.org/

https://stream24.ilsole24ore.com/serie/ceo-confidential-la-nuova-serie/AE1QkJCB

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This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Circular Protocol.

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