Crypto Valley on Clubhouse

Last night, I joined Clubhouse for the first time to mainly listen to a discussion initiated by Emi Lorincz entitled Crypto Convo Switzerland. Emi is based in Zürich and represents crypto hardware wallet Ledger in the DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) regions. She’s also a board member of the independent, government-supported Crypto Valley Association who’s trying to create the world’s best ecosystem for cryptographic and distributed ledger-based businesses in Switzerland and beyond.

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I became aware of the Clubhouse event through a retweet by an old friend from the Magento community who now is co-chair of the Crypto Valley Association, Jérôme ₿ailly from Lausanne.

Missing the #crypto meet-up’s! Therefore here we go on @joinClubhouse “Crypto convo – CH ✨🏔🇨🇭” with @MarcPhilippeB, @VerticaiCEO, @niki_csanyi, @ArielBarack, @JeromeBailly, and @Tilmar_Goos. Monday, 25 Jan at 8:00 PM CET on @joinclubhouse. Join us! https://t.co/fD5Uss6F8y

— Emi Lorincz ✨ (@EmiMoonsoon) January 22, 2021

Also on the Clubhouse stage were other interesting people from the Swiss blockchain space such as Marc Baumann, head of marketing and communications at Bitcoin Suisse, a Swiss crypto-finance and technology pioneer. On top of that, we also had the pleasure of hearing from author, blogger and blockchain OG (original «gangster») William Mougayar from Canada. He’s the author of The Business Blockchain which I read a couple of years ago. It’s a great read to understand the significance of blockchain technologies and the many use cases of which crypto currencies is only one of many.

William said he misses travelling to Switzerland and joined us from Toronto/Canada.

Crypto hype cycles, one after another:

1. Cryptocurrency as new currency atomic unit (Btc first)
2. Blockchains as dev platform (Eth first)
3. DeFi deconstructs Fi (many firsts) <– we are here
4. D-Services support (Chainlink, Graph)
5. D-Apps w/ mainstream users (Kin leads)

— William Mougayar (@wmougayar) January 17, 2021

It was an interesting first Clubhouse experience and reminded me a little of when I joined Twitter over 10 years ago and was amazed at how easy it is to connect with interesting people which lead to me writing an article about Magento hosting on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the t3n digital pioneers magazine.

The next Crypto Convo Switzerland meet-up on Clubhouse will take place on February 8, 2021.

Clubhouse

Clubhouse is a new type of network based on voice. When you open the app, you can see rooms full of people talking – all open so you can hop in and out, exploring different conversations. You enter each room as an audience member, but if you want to talk you just raise your hand, and the speakers can choose to invite you up. Or you can create a room of your own. It’s a place to meet with friends and with new people around the world – to tell stories, ask questions, debate, learn, and have impromptu conversations on thousands of different topics.

If you’re not yet on Clubhouse you can sign up for the waitlist or post a comment under this blog post, I have 2 invites left 

Crypto Valley Zug

Located in Zug in the heart of Switzerland, Crypto Valley is uniquely positioned to make the most of the decentralized Swiss political system and its matchless business environment. Zug offers a robust platform for global growth due to its pro-business philosophy and the openness and easy accessibility of its local government. Zug’s low-tax, business-friendly environment and fantastic quality of life have attracted many of the world’s leading companies, creating an international, cosmopolitan culture, and easy access to powerful global networks.

Neutrality, decentralization, and direct democracy

The Swiss citizen-controlled political system is neutral, stable, predictable, and highly responsive to its citizens. Switzerland’s decentralized, bottom-up political culture is a natural fit for the decentralized, bottom-up crypto technologies of the future.

Privacy Culture

The Swiss have one of the strongest privacy cultures in the world, with the first bank secrecy law dating back three centuries to 1713. Current data protection laws are among the world’s most stringent.

Sound policies and economic strength

Switzerland follows sound economic policies, including a strong currency with by far the highest gold reserves per capita of any country, and the world’s highest GDP per capita.

Productivity and Competitiveness

Switzerland is ranked number 1 in the world for competitiveness and productivity – the key drivers of economic growth and quality of life.

Friendly regulatory environment

The Swiss financial market regulator, Finma, encourages self-regulation rather than onerous top-down regulation, and is open and easily accessible for developing improved regulations.

World-class talent

Switzerland has a high quality educational system, with many top-ranked educational institutions. It spends more on R&D (research and development) per capita and is among the countries which produce the most Nobel laureates per capita. Switzerland is ranked number 1 in the world for ease of attracting and retaining world-class talent. While Swiss compensation rates are high, this does not necessarily translate into higher labor costs because of the exceptionally high productivity levels. The Swiss work systematically and accurately, they are innovative, they are self-starters, and they are honest. In Switzerland, you get what you pay for. This is especially true for creative intellectual work such as software engineering.

World-class infrastructure

Switzerland has world-leading infrastructure in energy, transportation, telecommunications, financial services, education, health care, environment, safety, and technological innovation.

Proximity and access to global markets

Switzerland is in the center of Europe, the same time zone as Africa, and halfway between the Americas and Asia, with excellent air, rail, road, and ocean connections. Switzerland has an extensive network of free trade agreements with all the major trading nations.

Secure and predictable legal framework

Given its world-leading, centuries-old rule of law institutions and culture of privacy, plus its decentralized, bottom-up, citizen-controlled political system, Switzerland has a strong tradition of legal security, predictability and protection of intellectual and property rights.

Friendly business environment

A leading global financial hub and home to hundreds of multinational corporations, Switzerland has a matchless business environment: excellent domestic and global business networks, flexible labor laws, low bureaucracy, a sophisticated, respected legal system, low corruption, availability of investment capital, low corporate and personal taxes, and high service levels.

High quality of life

Home to three of the world’s top ten quality of life cities, Switzerland is top-ranked for infrastructure, safety, health care, education, life expectancy, and work/life balance.

(Picture of Lake Zug courtesy of Raphael Schaller)