Benedek Orban

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA recently addressed stablecoin issuance and financial market law aspects for stablecoin projects. Stablecoin issuers are classified as financial intermediaries under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, emphasizing the need to identify holders and determine beneficial owners to mitigate risks like money laundering and terrorist financing. Acceptance of public deposits by stablecoin issuers typically requires a banking license, unless specific conditions are met to protect investors, such as a bank guarantee in case of default. FINMA's approach seeks to balance fintech innovation with robust risk management. Stay informed on the evolving regulatory landscape for stablecoins and the forthcoming draft legislation on fintech licenses. For more details, visit the link: https://lnkd.in/dxVEs5MW What are your thoughts on #stablecoin regulation?

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One of Switzerland’s largest banks, Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), has launched cryptocurrency trading and custody services for Bitcoin and Ethereum serving primarily retail segments, effective September 4, 2024. Congratulations to the entire ZKB team on this move. The community surely assumes this offering is only the start for more and more services ahead. This is after other state-owned Cantonal Banks like Luzerner Kantonalbank, St. Galler Kantonalbank AG and Zuger Kantonalbank have launched already. Along with Thurgauer Kantonalbank launching with the service of ZKB more or less simultaneously, we have 20% of Cantonal Banks live in Switzerland, at least in numbers not looking at AuM which would be surely a bigger part of the pie. Who is next? This marks a significant step towards mass adoption of digital assets, as ZKB's extensive client base now has direct access to cryptocurrencies. Clients can trade 24/7 via the bank’s eBanking and Mobile Banking platforms, with holdings seamlessly integrated into their existing portfolios. ZKB manages the secure custody of private keys, eliminating the need for customers to handle their own wallets. Key Highlights: ⌚ 24/7 Trading Access: Clients can trade cryptos anytime through ZKB's eBanking and Mobile Banking apps thus using the existing channels. 🔐 Secure Custody: No need for a separate wallet in self-custody, i.e. ZKB securely manages the client's private keys but clients also don't have access to the key which is common for this type of offering. 📦 Portfolio Integration: Crypto holdings are integrated into existing portfolio overviews for easy management. 🛍 Service Extended to Other Banks: Thurgauer Kantonalbank is the first partner bank to offer this service to its clients using ZKB's infrastructure. 💰 Fee Structure: Fees are 50 basis points for custody p.a. and 100 to 200 basis points for trading, depending on trading volume and channel. 🚥 Limitations for a start: There are no transfers of coins in or out so far, the base currency is USD which forces forex if paid in CHF and service hour limitations might occur on the weekend during regular update windows of the bank's IT. Also there is no financial advice on the coins and this offering comes as an execution only service. Hence cryptos are not part of managed mandates like discretionary ones. This development surely demonstrates ZKB's commitment to innovation and adapting to the evolving financial landscape. Here is of the official press statement to read (sorry, provided in German only, use your favorite translator): https://lnkd.in/dKX8czMM #web3 #digitalassets

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🖌 🖌 🖌 Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB) Poised to Enter the Digital Assets Market: A Major Signal for the Swiss Banking Sector. See also below article by Crypto Valley Journal 🖌 🖌 🖌 🖌 ZKB, one of Switzerland's largest banks and the preeminent cantonal bank, is preparing to offer trading services for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). This move signals a significant shift in the financial landscape, both within Switzerland and internationally, as banks increasingly embrace digital assets. 🖌 Over the past six months, the Swiss Cantonal Banks Zuger Kantonalbank, St. Galler Kantonalbank AG, and Luzerner Kantonalbank have successfully introduced cryptocurrency services, meeting strong customer demand. ZKB's potential entry into this space would be great, given its substantial traditional assets totaling 200 billion Swiss francs (CHF). 🖌 Recent updates in the ZKB mobile app, which now displays historical price data for BTC and ETH, suggest that the bank is nearing the launch of its crypto trading services. While ZKB has not officially confirmed these plans, sources indicate that the bank is seriously considering expanding its product offerings to include digital assets. 🖌 The trend among Swiss cantonal banks to adopt cryptocurrency services is accelerating. Following Zuger Kantonalbank's groundbreaking move in October 2023, St. Gallen and Lucerne quickly followed. Industry insiders anticipate that up to ten state banks (Cantonal Banks) may soon offer their own crypto products. And it is really high time this offering moved ahead. Digital Assets are on the road to main stream and growing quickly. 🖌 This development is part of a broader trend in the Swiss financial sector, with institutions like PostFinance and Swissquote already offering crypto services to retain customers. While banks like UBS remain cautious, the rapid progress of pilot projects and initiatives like the CBDC project "Helvetia III" by Swiss National Bank indicate growing interest and investment in digital assets respectively also use of wholesale CBDC between banks. 🖌 🖌 🖌 ZKB's potential foray into the crypto market underscores the growing importance of digital assets in banking. As the largest cantonal bank, ZKB's move would not only reinforce the trend but also catalyze further adoption of cryptocurrencies among financial institutions in Switzerland and beyond. Way to go. 🖌 🖌 🖌 https://lnkd.in/gxqY9nWx #web3 #digitalassets

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🇨🇭 #Swiss Cantonal Banks Enter the #Crypto Space! $300 billion Swiss government-owned #cantonal #banks are now launching #Bitcoin and crypto offerings. As #Europe's #MiCA regulations tighten and push firms out of the #EU, innovation and talent in Web3 are shifting to crypto-friendly hubs like #Switzerland, as the world’s most innovative country. 

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🚀 Exciting Update from FINMA on Stablecoins 🚀 Today, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) released new guidance on the issuance of stablecoins, underscoring crucial aspects such as default guarantees, associated risks, and regulatory practices. As stablecoin projects gain momentum in Switzerland, this guidance is a significant step towards ensuring a robust and secure financial ecosystem. Key Points: Regulatory Insights: FINMA highlights financial market law considerations for stablecoin projects and their impact on supervised institutions. Risk Awareness: Emphasis on increased risks related to money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions circumvention, which could affect the reputation of Switzerland's financial center. Default Guarantees: Clarification on the use of bank default guarantees by stablecoin issuers and the associated risks for holders and banks. FINMA sets out minimum requirements to protect depositors. This guidance is a must-read for anyone involved in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors. It’s essential to stay informed and compliant as we navigate this evolving landscape. Let's work together to build a secure and innovative financial future. 💡🔗 Read the full guidance here: https://lnkd.in/eADKkBDN #Crypto #Blockchain #Stablecoins #FINMA #Regulation #Innovation #Finance #Switzerland Feel free to connect for a deeper discussion on these developments!

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The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has recently issued new guidance on stablecoin issuance, notably prohibiting anonymous transfers between unhosted wallets. This mandates the identification of both the sending and receiving wallets for peer-to-peer transactions. Although justified by the prohibition of bearer savings books, this measure overlooks the continued ability to transfer cash peer-to-peer. Other jurisdictions may adopt similar restrictions, raising concerns about potential obstacles for private stablecoins in favor of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). The implementation of this prohibition remains uncertain. While technology may facilitate a smooth transition for secure and lawful global transactions, there is concern that this regulation could create additional bureaucratic barriers, affecting the vast majority of consumers to combat misuse by a small fraction. https://lnkd.in/db23jPB7

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🌍I'm excited to announce that I’ll be attending the Token Summit Liechtenstein 2024 in Vaduz , on behalf of 21X. I’ll be onsite on 3rd October 2024, and would love to connect. 🚀 📅 Event Details: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gdygz6GN At 21X, we’re shaping the future of capital markets with our global digital asset market infrastructure. We’re currently on the path to becoming a licensed DLT trading and settlement system under the EU DLT Pilot Regime (DLTR). This important milestone will enable a regulated market for the tradability and liquidity of tokenized securities worldwide, using public blockchain technology to enhance both efficiency and security. Let’s explore: 🔸 The evolution of digital assets and tokenized securities 🔸 Secondary markets on public blockchains with atomic settlement via e-money tokens for the cash leg 🔸 How tokenization is revolutionizing capital markets with native financial instruments 🔸 The regulatory frameworks driving the digital economy 🔸 Addressing the needs of a decentralized world Let’s connect and discuss the future of finance and trading. If you’re attending, feel free to reach out—I’d love to chat about the latest developments in our community!🤝 #TokenSummit #Blockchain #21X #DigitalAssets #DeFi #Tokenization #Web3 Max Heinzle Marc Hegen Severin Kranz Ulf Freimut Medek Jeffrey Hartjes Dennis Knauer Nicolas Klose Thomas Wodnitzki Thomas Zraunig Ana- Maria Caian Richie MacTaggart

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💡 Stablecoins in Danger – Is Switzerland at Risk of Losing Its Position as an Innovation Hub? 💡 The new Finma guidance on stablecoins have raised significant concerns within the crypto industry. In an article on finews, Ralf Zellweger describes the severe consequences these changes could have, limiting the potential of stablecoins as a barrier-free digital payment solution. The requirement for identification with every transaction – even with non-custodial wallets – could jeopardize Switzerland’s position as an innovation hub and weaken competition in an already monopolized market. As Zellweger aptly puts it: “This is like having to show an ID for every cash payment.” Switzerland has long positioned itself as a leader in the crypto space. However, with excessive regulations, we risk losing this advantage. Let’s hope that decision-makers recognize the dangers of overregulation and ensure that Switzerland remains a place for digital innovation in the future. 📖 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/diXW8q-5 #stablecoins #crypto

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How and where are you using DLT and digital assets to transform your capital market operations? If you’re building any digital asset project, fill this survey #digitalassets #capitalmarkets https://lnkd.in/dP8AXV6F Broadridge Accenture Metaco Hyperledger Foundation Xaults EquiDEI

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Blockchain 3.0 and Agency Computing – an important area that we will now cover through a fund-in-fund investment in Frachtis.

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Crypto Hodlers hate this trick 💡 Together with Walter Börst from DLT Finance AG, I presented Rudy at Bitkom #digifin24! 🌟 We refuted the notion that hodling crypto is always the best strategy. Here are the key insights: ⬇️ 1. Crypto investments should be purely passive; active management only leads to unnecessary risk. 🔍 Optimization of Entry and Exit Points: Active management allows for buying and selling based on current market trends, ensuring more effective capital utilization and potentially higher returns, especially in volatile markets. 🔍 Adapting to Market Conditions: Active portfolios can quickly adjust to changing market conditions, adopting defensive strategies in downturns and aggressive growth strategies in bullish phases, unlike passive hodling. 🔍 Risk Management and Capital Protection: Ongoing risk assessments and strategies like stop-loss orders, diversification, and derivatives protect capital from unforeseen market events, which passive hodling often lacks. 2. Traditional 'hodling' is the best method to benefit from crypto in the long term. 💡 Utilizing DeFi Lending for Yield Enhancement: Dynamic strategies can yield additional income through DeFi lending, allowing for passive earnings even when prices stagnate or fall, unlike pure hodling. 💡 Participating in Liquidity Provision and Earning Trading Fees: Participating in liquidity pools earns a share of trading fees, offering better capital utilization compared to hodling. This takes advantage of market volatility without direct market-timing risks. 💡 Risk Management through Diversified DeFi Strategies: Combining lending, staking, yield farming, and liquidity provision maximizes returns and spreads risk across non-correlated assets, crucial in an unpredictable market. While hodling is a valid strategy, everyone needs to make their own informed decisions. With Rudy, the first fully regulated digital assets robo-advisor, active management is now easier, more personalized, and more secure than ever before.

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Open Forum on the Digital Euro at the Austrian National Bank 25 June This is to quickly share that I will be speaking on international developments of CBDC at the Open Forum Digital Euro and Payments of the central bank of Austria (OENB) next Tuesday 25 June from 9:00 in Vienna. If you are in Vienna please do join. Austria has a special place as a pioneer of monetary innovation. During the mid-18th century, Austria minted the Maria Theresa Taler, in reference to the then Austrian monarch Maria Theresa (Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Croatia, Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany, Duchess consort of Lorraine and Bar (Wikipedia)) who ruled from 1740-1780 (difficult one for the UEFA European Football Championship Group Selection 😀). The Maria Theresa Taler became one of the first truly international currencies serving as one of the principal settlement mediums in commercial transactions throughout Eastern and Southern Africa and the Middle East. It became legal tender in several countries including in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen through well into the 20th century. It was continued to be minted in different locations long after it was demonetised in Austria (not something central banks are likely to encourage today). You can find more details on the Taler at https://lnkd.in/dNuWPepQ The Maria Theresa Taler had hence many of the features that some CBDCs today aspire to. This is a great example how the past can most usefully inform about the future. My remarks will cover on-going CBDC project mBridge, take a quick look at Switzerland on CBDC project Helvetia III and outline possible outcomes of new BIS projects Agora and Meridian FX. I hope this will provide with some insights about the rationale for adopting CBDCs and possible expected impact on payments. I shall also offer some brief comments on the digital euro and why the Eurosystem should be pursuing it. Very much looking forward the event! #digitaleuro #cbdc

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🚨 Tokenisation, stablecoins, staking - what's next for the UK?🚨 Two speeches of note today at the City & Financial Global Tokenisation Summit. 1️⃣ Sasha Mills, Executive Director for Financial Market Infrastructure at the Bank of England, talked about innovation in wholesale financial markets. 2️⃣ Tulip Siddiq, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, talked about the government's plans for crypto, stablecoins and staking. 🤔 What did they say? 1️⃣ Sasha Mills, on innovation in wholesale financial markets: Digitisation has been the combustion engine of financial markets, transforming paper-based systems to computer-based activity, on to the digital systems of today. Tokenisation can further revolutionise financial markets. Not a novel concept – but the real innovation is the type of infrastructure on which that token sits, and what that enables. ✅ Distributed ledgers can reduce the need for a single central party to perform record-keeping on the ledger. ✅ No single point of failure in how critical data is stored. ✅ Cryptographic techniques to secure data can reduce risk by improving the security and integrity of financial transactions ✅ Programmability has facilitated the consolidation and collapsing of the trade and post-trade functions, resulting in reduced settlement risk, and unprecedented efficiency gains in the trade lifecycle. 🤔 What is the Bank of England’s role in this reinvention? ✅ Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS): ➡ allows industry to experiment with developing technologies to issue, trade and settle digitally native securities, and ‘digital twin’ tokenised securities in a safe and secure environment for a range of regulated asset classes. ✅ Innovations in Money: ➡ Money needs to keep up with tokenised assets. BoE considering ways to enhance usefulness of central-bank money as a settlement asset for digital asset transactions. Also considering what additional functionality a wholesale central bank digital currency could bring. ✅ Post-trade settlement: ➡ Traditional processes are sequential and often manual, time-consuming, costly, and operationally risky for all users of financial markets. The tokenisation of securities on distributed ledgers – digital securities – offers the potential to merge trade and post-trade functions, shortening settlement cycles and offering more programmability and automation in financial transactions. 2️⃣ Tulip Siddiq, on plans for crypto, stablecoins and staking: ✅ Government to introduce regulatory regime for cryptoassets. ✅ Stablecoins to be regulated at same time as cryptoassets. ✅ Issuance and custody will be regulated. ❌ No longer a phased approach. ❌ Stablecoins not to be in scope of payment services regulation. ❌ Staking is not a Collective Investment Scheme. ............. 🤔 What's next? ⏩ Expect to see the framework early next year. I'd love to hear your thoughts 👉 #HMT #BoE #innovation #tokenisation #stablecoins #staking

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SFI Swiss Finance Institute - Blockchain Currency Markets The authors conduct the first comprehensive study of #blockchain #currencies, #stablecoins pegged to traditional currencies and traded on decentralized exchanges. Their findings reveal that the blockchain market generally operates efficiently, with blockchain prices and trading volumes closely aligned with those of their traditional counterparts. However, blockchain-specific factors, such as gas fees and Ethereum volatility, act as frictions. Blockchain prices are determined by macroeconomic fundamentals and order flow. The authors use a rich transaction-level database of trades and link it to the characteristics of market participants. Traders with significant market share and access to the primary market have a greater impact on pricing, likely due to informational advantages. 

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We are getting many questions on our Crypto Multi Barrier Reverse Convertibles -> here some insights 👍 Can independent asset managers create their own MBRC with Helveteq? YES 👍 How is your latest MBRC developing? BTC >70% above barrier, ETH > 80% above barrier, runs until 8th November 👍 Can you also include other crypto currencies? YES, we have in other products, can do > 40 coins including SOLANA, AVALANCHE, CARDANO etc. 👍 Can your MBRCs be made with European observation? YES We'll advise you more, just send us your questions to [email protected] #Crypto #Bitcoin #Ether #Switzerland #investmentsolutions #structuredproducts #volatility #correlation #yield Bank Frick Helveteq AG ADEXAS Rechtsanwälte AG Baker McKenzie

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📢Banca d'Italia then presents the #FBFT (FROSTed Byzantine Fault Tolerance) protocol, which represents a new approach to #PoA consensus, capable of guaranteeing the #confidentiality of #validators. 📍This combines the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (#PBFT) algorithm, a well-known achievement in the field of distributed systems, with the threshold signature scheme called Flexible Round-Optimised Schnorr Threshold (FROST), a recent contribution to cryptography. With #FROST, the FBFT protocol certifies the achievement of consensus using a #joint #signature, which represents the approval of a set of transactions by a #quorum of #validators. 📍The Bank of Italy paper pulls the strings of the #functionalities and #potentialities of distributed ledger-based technologies, i.e. #DLTs, characterised by elements such as #programmability and the use of #advanced #cryptography, which make them precisely suitable for use in environments controlled by a central authority, or by a set of authorities, such as the financial sector. 📍However, all #DLTs (#permissionless or #permissioned) operate through a decision-making process aimed at reaching an agreement on the next state of the register. And this process is called "#consensus protocol": a fundamental component of any DLT, because it allows #validators to operate without interruption even if some of them are compromised, or are disconnected from the #network. 📍The main objective, although experimental and not yet ready for market launch, is to create an #alternative platform for a #distributed and #resilient transactional infrastructure: managed by a set of trusted and geographically distributed actors, it has the potential to be used in applications such as wholesale and retail central bank digital currencies @CBDC, or, in perspective, for #tokenization of financial assets.

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