A Cointelegraph documentary (YouTube transcript) surveying Switzerland’s emerging crypto ecosystem, centered on Zug ("Crypto Valley"). It documents municipal experiments (bitcoin payments for city services, a blockchain-based digital-ID referendum held June 25–July 1, 2018), local commerce accepting bitcoin, academic programs on blockchain in Lucerne, Swiss regulatory framing via FINMA, and perspectives from Switzerland’s central bank. The piece contrasts grassroots adoption and startup hubs (TrustSquare, Crypto Finance) with regulatory and banking challenges while concluding that Switzerland could become a global crypto hub though widespread use remains limited.
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Do you know that you can buy bitcoin at every teller machine of the Swiss National Railway? At every train station, you can buy bitcoin.
Switzerland, the land of milk chocolate, cuckoo clocks, pocket knives, exquisite handmade watches, mountains, bankers, and this. But now, Switzerland may be on the verge of becoming something more. A crypto paradise.
Hi, I'm Molly Jane from Cointelegraph and we're coming to you from Zug. It's also known as the Crypto valley and Switzerland has been called the Crypto nation. So we've come here to check it out.
Long before bitcoin was a gleam in Satoshi Nakamoto's eye, the city of Zug knew how to attract money. With a 14% corporate tax rate, one of the lowest in the world, it became home to nearly 30,000 companies, almost as many as there are people in the town now. Zouk is home to more than 400 crypto enterprises, all happily ensconced in what has become known as Switzerland's Crypto Valley. And a gorgeous valley it is. With a large lake set against the backdrop of Switzerland's ever snowy alpine peaks. It's almost beautiful enough to make us forget why here. We managed, however, to bring our eyes down from the mountains to meet with Dolphie Mueller, the mayor of Zug, who has presided over a policy of accepting bitcoin to pay for some city services, making him, in a sense, the crypto mayor.
Everybody in the world was interested what happens in Zug, because we have been the first. We didn't know anything about bitcoin, we didn't know anything about blockchain. And so we invited a student which explained us the difference between these things. We started it two years ago. Now we have about 50 or 55 payments, not more. And it's only bitcoin. It's not bitcoin cash, it's Bitcoin.
From June 25 to July 1, 2018, Zug held Switzerland's first blockchain based municipal referendum. The vote, which was non binding, used the city's new digital ID system.
Here is a good place. Let's start an experiment with the so called digital ID based on blockchain. Every year in summertime, we have a great party at the lakeside of Zug and there is a firework and we ask them, do you want to have a firework again, yes or no. And in Switzerland, a referendum. That's something holy.
Has all this converted the mayor into a real crypto? Hodler. Hmm.
I'm not interested in cryptocurrency for Myself.
Despite the crypto mayor's lack of personal enthusiasm. Get with the program, fella. Zoog's experiments with crypto are breaking new ground. And city services aren't the only things you can buy with it there.
We were told that here in Zug you can use bitcoin to buy a Ferrari or a Maserati, but we don't.
Really have the budget for that.
So let's go try to buy some wine instead.
Hello.
Hi.
Can I recommend you something?
Yes. I'm looking to buy some nice wine perfectly from Switzerland, but I'd like to paint bitcoin. Can I do that here?
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Oh, great.
Just take this one that you just looked. It's a very nice wine. It's a Syrah.
Paying with crypto was as easy as scanning a QR code. And the wine was delicious. So we left Zug and drove to Lucerne, another important city on the crypto map of Switzerland. Here it prestigious university is offering courses on cryptocurrency and blockchain. Hey, now we're over here at the.
Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
Where students can pay for everything with.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Let's go talk to the dean.
We have several programs that are focused on blockchain technologies in the distributed ledger, which are small ones, which only last for two days. We give them short insight. And we also have a longer program which lasts for about four months, where we really actually get deep inside view in these activities. And right now, for next semester, we're also starting in the bachelor program with courses dedicated to blockchain distributed ledger.
All of which makes perfect sense since the university president's last name is Hodl. So the universities are into it. But what about Swiss officialdom? Later that day, we met Thomas Moser, an alternate member of the board of Switzerland's central bank, who has been a bit of a downer about blockchain technology, at least according to the news.
That was fake news. Actually, I didn't say it that way. What I said is that I think for innovation and technology to take the next step, it has to be something else than just a copy of existing products. The innovations in money usually came from the private sector. If you think of the banknote, that was not an invention by the state, that was not an invention by the central bank. That came from the private sector, from the commercial banks. And then people started to complain about it because there was fraud. A lot of people lost money and then eventually got regulated as a first step and as a second step, it got nationalized. That's clearly something that could be also repeated with cryptocurrencies.
We had our conversation with Thomas Moser on the embankment of Lake Zurich, just a few steps from his office in the Central Bank. The next day we were nearby at Benhofstrasse 3, the financial center of Zurich and its most exciting street. This is the address of TrustSquare, the former home of a private Liechtenstein bank and now the largest blockchain hub in Switzerland.
So Trust Square is a technology hub specialized on blockchain. And the history behind it is that several blockchain entrepreneurs wanted to have a community. So we have 40 blockchain companies here from different backgrounds. We want to focus more on working with the universities and with the corporates.
All three floors of the Trust Square are full of all sorts of blockchain startups, from students with some crazy spaceship ideas to more down to earth insurance projects. And these blockchain incubators are in high demand.
We have over 400 players already in Switzerland and the government is very pro business, very helpful. It's a very decentralized culture and it's really in line. What I think blockchain and crypto assets are. FINMA is trying to move the whole crypto asset business into more regulated security token.
Finma, the financial regulator, categorizes the tokens based on the underlying economic function. Payment tokens, utility tokens and asset tokens. But what drives this whole process is that every ICO can send the description of its projects to FINMA and within just four to eight weeks receive a clear statement whether regulatory provisions are applicable. As a result, in 2017, $1.5 billion were raised in ICOs in Switzerland, the second largest amount of money raised after the US.
I would say that one year ago an ICO would cost you roughly 400, 500,000 Swiss francs. I think nowadays you're more and more looking towards the 1 million range. Here.
Now. Welcome to the Crypto Villa, a 19th century mansion that formerly housed another private bank from Liechtenstein that went bankrupt due to money laundering schemes. It is now the home of Crypto Finance ag, a case of the new money literally replacing the old money. So is it common in Switzerland that bankers from the traditional financial industry go crypto?
Yeah, more and more in our company we have, I would say 80% ex bankers from UBS, Credit Suisse and some other large banks. We have the whole financial market infrastructure in Switzerland. We have the financial system in Switzerland, which is very strong. We have a very strong background. So we have the theoretical know how. And then from a society perspective, we have a very decentralized government, we have democracy. This is meshed very well with the whole crypto space.
How difficult is it to open an account for a crypto or blockchain company?
It's very difficult. There's only a handful of banks here in Switzerland that openly communicate that they want to have ICO clients open a bank account.
One of the problems still is that cryptocurrencies and bitcoins still have this reputation of being used for illicit or criminal activities.
And how beautiful will the ending be for cryptocurrency here? Let's just say that the signs are gorgeous. So is Switzerland a crypto nation after all?
Currently, I say yes, we are a crypto nation on a very early stage, but we have everything to really become a big hub for crypto offering.
So there's a high probability that we will see unicorns coming out of Switzerland the next few years, because I think the foundation is in place.
In the future, the blockchain technology will be a base technology that is used in a lot of applications, and the people actually won't realize that they're using a blockchain.
I think at that stage, we still have to think about what would it mean for monetary policy, what would it mean for financial stability? The question would also be, would there still be private banks? Would they still have a role in the payment system?
We have to overcome some of our own hurdles and take some risks and move forward because the competition is not sleeping.
We'll give the final word to our favorite crypto mayor.
I will be finished my work end of this year, and I always say it was a very beautiful final of my time as a mayor of Zoo.
Although Switzerland has long been considered the banking capital of the world, it soon could become the global crypto capital. However, I think that cryptocurrencies and bitcoins still have a long way to go before they see widespread usage. As the sun sets tonight over Zug, the crypto Valley Bitcoin may be rising over Switzerland.
