The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is scheduled to take place from May 22–26, marking the first in-person WEF global leadership event since the pandemic began. The annual meeting was first scheduled for January but was later turned into a virtual event in light of growing COVID-19 infections during the winter. The Davos Agenda 2022 virtual event, which took place from January 17–21, 2022, saw major world leaders appeal for cooperation in tackling major global socioeconomic issues. Discussions during the virtual event revolved around global economic recovery, climate action, technological innovation and global collaboration. A total of …

In a bid to combat illegal activity and "regulatory arbitrage," a Swiss-based think tank has urged greater international cooperation on cryptocurrency regulation. On Monday, the Basel Institute of Governance and the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators released a paper calling for further coordinated action against unlawful crypto-markets. Among the proposed solutions are greater cooperation between jurisdictions, as well as the creation of worldwide standards for cryptocurrency regulation. According to the paper, investigators who work with cryptocurrency should invest in learning approaches and technologies that are contemporary with evolving criminal organization techniques. Also, it recommended judicial authorities come up with …

Switzerland’s southern city of Lugano will host a blockchain- and cryptocurrency-focused school as part of a partnership between the local government and Tether (USDT). In a Thursday announcement, Tether and Lugano said they will be launching the Plan ₿ Summer School in an effort “to bring blockchain and crypto education to the masses.” The education center is part of Tether’s "Plan ₿" initiatives with the Swiss city, which have included making Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT) and the LVGA token legal tender in the area. @luganomycity @Tether_to @FranklinSwitz @USI_university announced today the launch of @LuganoPlanB Summer School, 3-16 July 2022. Apply …

The 132-year-old Swiss asset management firm, Julius Baer, intends to offer exposure to cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi) for its high net-worth clients. The firm’s CEO Philipp Rickenbacher confirmed the move into the cryptocurrency space during his delivery of the company’s strategy update for the next three years. Rickenbacher noted that the recent slump in the cryptocurrency markets presented a watershed moment for its clients to gain exposure to the nascent asset class. “It could well be at this very instant that we are witnessing a bubble-burst moment of the crypto-industry and we all know what happened after the dot-com …

GAM Investments has quashed fake news reports that surfaced on Friday that claimed the Swiss asset manager would invest some $3 billion to aid in the recovery of the Terra ecosystem, including LUNA and the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin. An announcement published on Thursday claimed that the firm was engaging in talks with Terraform Labs to assist in recovery attempts after Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin, UST, lost its U.S. dollar peg, causing a cataclysmic crash of the acclaimed blockchain protocol, which had become a darling of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Cointelegraph has confirmed with GAM Investments that the press release was …

LGT Group, a top family-owned private banking and asset management group, is moving into cryptocurrency by launching Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) investments at LGT Bank in Liechtenstein. Managing over $292 billion of assets, LGT Bank has debuted digital asset custody and trading services in cooperation with Swiss cryptocurrency bank Seba, according to a joint announcement released on Wednesday. “LGT Bank has been offering direct investments in Bitcoin and Ether since May. The private bank has entered into a partnership with Seba Bank, which will act as broker and custodian to provide this service,” Seba Bank’s chief marketing officer Sandra …

Swiss privacy startup Nym Technologies announced it has secured $300 million in commitments from venture capital partners in support of the NYM Innovation Fund. Nym intends to issue grants to developers and incentivize them to build on top of Nym's decentralized infrastructure. This funding comes a couple of weeks after its native token NYM launched on major crypto exchanges, including OKX and Huobi. At the time of publication, the NYM token traded at an average price of $0.92, and its 24-hour trading volume has witnessed a spike since the fund's announcement. The day that NYM was first listed on April …

ORIGYN, a Swiss foundation that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and authenticate objects of value, has partnered with luxury watch marketplace WatchBox. The pair will co-produce certificates of authenticity in the form of NFTs to enable customers to trade the digital ownership of a watch. ORIGYN is the largest project on the Internet Computer Protocol, or ICP, developed by The DFINITY Foundation blockchain. Individuals who purchase a collector quality timepiece via WatchBox can expect ORIGYN to certify the authenticated object thanks to its biometric technology. Each watch is given a unique biometric fingerprint and an NFT that contains all …

21Shares, a major issuer of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETP), is launching a new ETP tracking a mix of Bitcoin (BTC) and gold. The Switzerland-based firm on Wednesday announced the launch of the 21Shares ByteTree BOLD ETP (BOLD), a new product aimed at providing inflation protection by tracking an index providing risk-adjusted exposure to both BTC and gold. Listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange, the new hybrid ETP is subject to monthly rebalances, according to the inverse historic volatility of each asset. At launch, BOLD comprises 18.5% of BTC and 81.5% of gold. The new ETP was developed in collaboration with …

Bitcoin Suisse has begun offering decentralized finance (DeFi) services to its clients with the addition of the Liquity protocol to its product lineup. It allows customers to post Ether (ETH) collateral in the protocol to mint and borrow the Liquity Dollar (LUSD) stablecoin. In an announcement on April 20, Bitcoin Suisse said it will perform all smart contract interactions and system monitoring on its client’s behalf and allow the borrowed LUSD token to be exchanged into any fiat currency. Bitcoin Suisse is a centralized crypto and financial services company founded in 2013 and based in Switzerland, offering services such as …

Two new carbon-neutral cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) have been launched on the Six Swiss Exchange, bringing the total number of crypto ETPs to 155. The SIX Swiss Exchange just announced on Monday that Helveteq is introducing two new crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), Bitcoin (Bitcoin Zero / BTCO2) and Ethereum (Ether Zero / ETH2O), becoming the third crypto ETP issuer to join SIX in 2022. An ETP is a derivative financial instrument that trades based on assets such as commodities, currencies, share prices, or interest rates. The BTCO2 and ETH2O ETPs seek to expose investors to the world's two most valuable …

Sygnum Singapore, a subsidiary of Switzerland-based cryptocurrency bank Sygnum, is expanding services after securing new regulatory approval from local authorities. The company announced Tuesday that Sygnum Singapore received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to offer three additional regulated activities under capital markets services (CMS) license. The CMS license was initially granted in 2019, allowing Sygnum Singapore to conduct asset management activities. The latest in-principle regulatory approval upgrades Sygnum Singapore to enable new tools like providing corporate finance advisory services, dealing with tokenized capital market products and digital assets, as well as offering custodial services for asset …