“The Point Zero Forum has rapidly become the place where policymakers and regulators meet with the finance industry to chart a path forward in digital assets, AI, risk management and sustainability” Pat Patel, Executive Director, Elevandi.
During 3 days Switzerland has hosted over 1,000 players from Financial Industry, Policy Makers, Innovators in Digital Assets, AI, Climate data and Capital Providers, with the intention to drive the growth of transformative technologies and promote the appropriate governance frameworks.
The Forum was opened by Swiss Federal Councillor Karin Keller-Sutter, Head of the Federal Department of Finance and Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, Heng Swee Keat.
In a program full of roundtables, stage sessions, networking, workshops, and innovation tours many conversations were about digital assets and the blockchain innovations in the financial sector.
The Role of CBDCs
Are CBDCs catalysts for financial innovation? A discussion between Professor Amir Yaron, Governor, Bank of Israel, Harvesh Seegolam, Governor, Bank of Mauritius, Professor Thomas J. Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board, Swiss National Bank, and Cecilia Skingsley, Head of BIS Innovation Hub, Bank for International Settlements (BIS) highlighted that the question is not just about CBDCs. It is about the future of money and payments, and there is no future scenario without Central Banks.
From Abstractions to Actions
It was remarkable the mention of the progress of pilots that multiple parties are running to advance the use of DLT technology, among these projects are:
Project Helvetia was a multi-phase investigation by the BIS Innovation Hub, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and the financial infrastructure operator SIX.
Project Jura explored settling foreign exchange (FX) transactions in euro and Swiss franc wholesale CBDCs as well as issuing, transferring and redeeming a tokenized euro-denominated French commercial paper between French and Swiss financial institutions.
A Stablecoin for Switzerland
Swiss Stablecoin was launched in partnership with PostFinance, the goal is an openly accessible, broadly based and fully regulated digital Swiss Franc. In the presentation were discussed the challenges and opportunities of a Blockchain based payment solution and the difference to other digital payment methods and the use case with Carossier.
DeFi and FX Markets
Project Mariana explores automated market makers (AMM) for the cross-border exchange of hypothetical central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in Swiss Francs, euros and Singapore dollars between financial institutions to settle foreign exchange trades in financial markets.
Mariana uses decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to automate foreign exchange markets and settlement, potentially improving cross-border payments (and supporting a priority of the G20). Today, DeFi built on public blockchains uses smart contract protocols to automate markets for crypto and digital assets. AMM protocols combine pooled liquidity with innovative algorithms to determine the prices between two or more tokenized assets.
Playback of Project Guardian – Unlocking TradFi with DeFi
To mark the first-year anniversary of Project Guardian, a project by The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), an innovative effort that allows the industry to explore the viability of DeFi applications, while preserving financial stability and integrity.
Members of Project Guardian discussed key findings from industry pilots, including the challenges and obstacles they faced to complete their live industry pilots and how they overcame them.
State of Global Digital Asset Regulation: Navigating Opportunities in an Evolving Landscape: Policymakers and regulators dove into the divergence in digital asset regulation and the pressing need for greater collaboration to foster a consistent approach. The conversation was joined by Alessandra Perrazzelli, the Deputy Governor of the Banca d’Italia, Hon. Caroline D. Pham, Commissioner at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, along with Ondřej Kovařík, Member of the European Parliament, and Ronadol Numnonda, Deputy Governor, Financial Institutions Stability of the Bank of Thailand.
Over the last three years, Ondřej worked towards securing European Parliament approval for the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulation. The panel has underscored the importance of operationalizing MICA, highlighting it as the next crucial phase.
The blend of TradFi with blockchain innovation
Sergio P. Ermotti, the Group Chief Executive Officer of UBS Group AG spoke on Combining Values and Tradition With Innovation for a Competitive Financial Centre. When talking about innovation he mentioned “The future is clearly going to go in the direction of blockchain technology and being able to experiment this technology in a safe environment together with regulators is very helpful”.
“Hopefully the good relationship between financial institutions and regulators can help other authorities outside the financial system to embrace blockchain, to embrace those changes to make our administration more efficient so that we free out resources for investments in other areas”.
Final Thoughts
Overall the forum was very informative and dynamic, a hands on approach to advance technology adoption, regulation and risk management in the financial system.
As quoted by Dante Disparte, Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy, “The Point Zero Forum sits at the crossroads of the future of finance and money, while bringing together the right group of stakeholders to move from abstractions to actions.”
To add to the active dynamic of the event, the last day was dedicated to Innovation Tours, hosted by different players in the ecosystem. CV LABS Zug hosted the Point Zero Forum meets Crypto Valley at CV Labs: A deep dive into the Worlds of Blockchain and Web3, presenters included:
- Bank Frick : Jonas Gantenbein Sr. Relationship Manager Blockchain Banking
- Safe: Lukas Schor Co-founder
- Fireblocks : Yves Cabré Sales Director
- Transfero Group Swiss: Guilherme Murtinho, CMO
- Notabene: Pelle Brændgaard, CEO
- Crypto Finance Group: Stephanie Hurry, Head of Institutional Sales
- Nucleus Finance: Ralf Kubli, President
- CV VC: Lukas Etter, Co-Head of Investments
- Cardano Foundation: Alexander F. Moser Associate Head of Infrastructure
- NEAR Protocol: Marieke Flament, CEO
- Web3 Foundation: Filippo Franchini, Technical Educator
- Alien Worlds: Saro M., Co-Founder & CEO
- Tezos Foundation: Jakob Linus Stammler, Grants, investments, gaming
- DFINITY: Dominic Williams ∞, Founder & Chief Scientist