Crypto Valley Trip -> Mission Zug
Is Zug the next location for starting a crypto business?
This week (14th Aug. 2017) there has been an unusual event. A spontaneously organized exploration adventure in the heart of Switzerland’s new crypto-hot-spot called Crypto Valley in the canton of Zug. Crypto Valley is a term, coined by Mihai Alisie almost by accident, born out of the necessity to explain the interest in the growing popularity of this area for crypto companies.
Zug is a small city in the heart of Switzerland chosen by a growing number of crypto companies for its attractive location, friendly tax environment and open-minded Swiss legal authorities. So Jeremy Epstein and Ken Berger decided to head over there and learn more about this opportunity first-hand.
What happened next is more than extraordinary.
Fred Willson blogs about the trip and Jeremy and Ken end up with a list of more than 250 people that want to join the adventure and visit Zug. So the story begins…
My colleague Alexander Fürer and myself were accepted to what will be known as genesis-block-members: the first crew that went to Zug to explore this crypto location and see if it’s the right spot to incorporate the business and start a blockchain company/foundation. Our expectations were high especially as we are developing our own crypto startup ArtCoins and we needed answers quickly.
The three days with a packed program, full of meetings and presentations were more than we expected. We had an opportunity to meet important stakeholders from the canton of Zug and the Crypto Valley Association and to learn more on the Swiss approach to the hype around crypto currencies. Our group was a fantastic and diverse mix of crypto enthusiasts made up of: developers, researches, explorers, investors, entrepreneurs, marketing experts, music producers and financial experts.
We gave no mercy to our guest lecturers. Question after question, we could have gone on for hours, but Jeremy was there to stop us and keep us on the schedule. Then an amazing thing happened: one lecturer was late and we had some time for ourselves. This sparked an open table discussion within the group which I found to be one of the best moments of the whole journey. When you are in a bar, having drinks, people are divided into small groups, but this round table was an unique opportunity to exchange thoughts on everything that was bothering us, from banks, legal and legislative problems to ICOs, which were renamed into TGEs — Token Generating Events (so Americans can get some sleep finally).
To keep a long story short here are my conclusions and lessons learned:
- Zug is a beautiful, peaceful Swiss city, located on a lake, surrounded with mountains. An amazing scenery.
- Switzerland is a trustworthy jurisdiction and represents a world wide trusted brand. And the Swiss have been famous for their smart decisions, reliable democratic processes and a stable economic environment for centuries, avoiding wars and conflicts.
- With growing interest in Crypto Valley, there is now more and more institutional support and ways to get help in the crypto space. For example we met with Bitcoin Suisse and MME, two important players in Zug that help companies entering crypto space. As it was confirmed on one of the meetings, the Crypto Valley Association is preparing a documentation and guidelines for future crypto businesses that want to incorporate in Switzerland.
- Proximity to Zurich (20 min train ride) makes both locations interesting: Zurich offers a vibrant, cosmopolitan lifestyle, while Zug is good for taxation and business operations.
- Zurich airport is one of the biggest in Europe, and it’s location as a central spot on the continent makes it ideal for traveling.
- The canton of Zug is not rushing on marketing its area for crypto enthusiasts, but instead letting it develop in an organic and natural way. It does have an influence on Swiss government and the government listens to them if there are good suggestions on the table. The role of the CVA seems to be critical here.
- Banks are starting to take notice of the crypto markets. This is illustrated for example by the offer of Falcon Group, the first Swiss private bank to provide blockchain asset management solution for its clients and a Bitcoin ATM at their branch office in Zurich.
- Swiss say that they are sometimes slow in adopting new trends, but that is because they are thinking and researching a lot before acting in the best interest for their citizens and community, and then, when they make a decision, it is activated extremely quickly. This might actually be good for the crypto business because creating a regulated high quality environment is not easy.
- Zug, as is the rest of Switzerland is quite expensive, and immigration procedures can be pretty challenging. It might be difficult to bring a substantial number of developers to Switzerland. Still there are exceptional hubs of highly skilled people from top universities like ETH and HSG that have great interest in the area of crypto development.
My impression is that most of us did find some answers we were looking for, but the biggest benefit was meeting all the people and establishing new connections and friendships.
Many of the discussions were focused on financial aspects of coins and the crypto investment space. But there were also lectures that covered the implementation of blockchain technology in addressing real world problems. These lectures made it obvious that there are many milestones the whole crypto space needs to pass in order to really bring the world into a decentralized future.
I would say that fight with regulators will be a long and uphill battle that everyone entering the crypto coin space will have to take.
Patience and knowledge will be needed as we are just getting started.
Considering our own venture, what was amazing where the discussions we had with the group members on the introduction of art and ArtCoins into the world of blockchain. There were some fantastic comments on our white-paper and some valid points that we will take into consideration. We take this as one of the biggest benefits from our trip.
Today (two days after the trip) Alex and I realized that we could have presented our group a live demo of VR All Art, our Virtual Reality Art Platform, in our Zurich office.
But we completely missed that opportunity as the program was so intense. We will correct this next time, and invite adventurers to visit our office (and gallery) in Zurich and experience art in VR and on the blockchain, on Jeremy’s and Ken’s October trip.
So if you ask me if Crypto Valley is the next Silicon Valley, I would answer it’s too early to say, but it definitely has good potential if the Swiss government acts in the best interest of the crypto community and Swiss citizens of course. For now, it looks like Zug is more comparable to Delaware then to San Francisco.
One thing is certain: as more companies find Switzerland as a safe and trustworthy location for their crypto business, Crypto Valley will grow in strength and that will put positive pressure on the Swiss government to create beneficial crypto regulations.
