The national postal service of Switzerland is working to bridge the gap between physical stamps and the digital cryptocurrency industry by introducing tradable digital stamps. On Sept. 20, the Swiss Post officially announced the upcoming launch of the “Swiss crypto stamp,” a digital collectible linked to a physical stamp issued by the postal service worth 8.9 Swiss francs. The Swiss crypto stamp will provide a digital representation for a physical stamp and will be stored on a blockchain. “Each design forms a nonfungible token and is stored in the Polygon Blockchain,” a spokesperson for the Swiss Post told Cointelegraph. Buyers …

Scientists are continuously pursuing ways to lengthen the human lifespan, and blockchain might have been a missing part of the puzzle. The Longevity Science Foundation, a Swiss entity launched by a consortium of biotech founders, clinicians and leading longevity research institutions, aims to spend more than $1 billion over the next 10 years to find tech-based means to achieve a 120-year human lifespan. The foundation seeks to fund research, institutions and projects that use blockchain and other next-gen technologies to find new horizons in four critical areas of the field; namely, therapeutics, personalized medicine, artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive diagnostics. …

Cryptocurrency adoption continues gaining momentum in Switzerland as local financial authorities grant more regulatory approvals for crypto investment instruments. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has approved the Crypto Market Index Fund as the “first crypto fund according to Swiss law,” the authority officially announced on Wednesday. The fund is launched by Swiss asset manager Crypto Finance and is administered by investment management firm PvB Pernet von Ballmoos AG with custody by regulated custodian SEBA Bank AG. FINMA noted that the newly approved fund is restricted to qualified investors, investing primarily in cryptocurrencies or digital assets “based on the …

SEBA Bank AG, a fully regulated Swiss-based institution that focuses on offering digital cryptocurrency assets, announced Wednesday the approval of a CISA license from the Swiss Financial Market Authority, or FINMA, to facilitate an institutional-grade custodian service for nation-native collective investment schemes. This announcement enables the bank to become Switzerland’s — and indeed one of the world’s first — digital asset-centric banks to gain a custody license. The endorsement will allow the institution to provide greater investment opportunities to professional clientele in the emerging cryptocurrency markets. Founded in mid-2018 as an advocate of next-generation digital banking, the firm soon rose …

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or FINMA, announced their approval for regulated Swiss exchange SIX to launch a digital asset marketplace and central securities depository built on distributed ledger technology on Friday. Initially intent on launching in the latter half of 2019, the Six exchange was slowed from progressing its ambitions by regulatory hurdles. Although no specific date of launch was announced on Friday, it is expected that after this challenge has been negotiated, customers will be able to experience the exchange's offerings in the near future. In February this year, 21 Shares launched the world’s first Polkadot exchange-traded …

After four years of debate, a five-star hotel in a luxurious area of the Swiss Alps is prepared to accept Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) as payment from guests. According to an Aug. 26 report from Swiss news outlet Blick, guests at the Chedi Andermatt hotel are now allowed to settle bills of more than 200 Swiss francs — roughly $218 — using Bitcoin or Ether. Prices are still seemingly set in fiat to reduce any risk of volatility, with the hotel converting any cryptocurrency received immediately into francs. “We have long known that cryptocurrencies also have a future in …

Deutsche Boerse-backed digital asset firm Crypto Finance AG and Swiss business-to-business transaction bank InCore are launching a new tokenization tool based on the Tezos blockchain. InCore Bank officially announced on Tuesday a new collaboration with Crypto Finance AG and Swiss IT consulting firm Inacta to introduce new digital financial products based on Tezos, a decentralized, open-source, proof-of-stake blockchain network. The involved companies have developed a new Tezos token standard for asset tokenization built on the Tezos FA2 standard, a multi-asset interface for Tezos allowing developers to invent token types like nonfungible tokens. Using the Tezos FA2, Inacta has developed the …

Following the successful expansion of its cryptocurrency service within its homeland of Switzerland, fintech firm Leonteq has now launched a collaborative effort with ICF Bank — one of Germany’s leading securities trading banks — to bring crypto to institutional investors throughout Germany and Austria. Well regarded for their accolades in the Swiss markets, including being the “world’s first short tracker certificate on Bitcoin in 2017, as well as the world’s first reverse convertible on Bitcoin in 2019,” the firm is now set to make further strides in the emerging space. Following the evolution of a multi-year relationship, Leonteq and ICF …

Zeno Staub, CEO of Swiss private banking and investment management giant Vontobel, has revealed that some of the company’s wealthy clients have crypto exposure. Speaking to Bloomberg on Tuesday, Staub stated that Vontobel's clients have an interest in cryptocurrencies. According to Staub, blockchain technology will have a profound impact on global finance. As part of the interview, the Vontobel CEO described the novel tech as the “Logic consequence of the general trend securitization because it is the only available technology that can create trust without a central counterparty.” Commenting on the bank’s crypto offerings for wealthy clients, Staub stated: “What …

Deutsche Boerse has acquired a majority stake in Crypto Finance AG — a Swiss digital asset firm. According to a release issued on Tuesday, the German stock exchange operator has bought a two-thirds stake in the digital asset company. Though the financial details of the deal have yet to be made public, Deutsche Boerse revealed that the purchase sum was in the “moderate three-digit CHF million range.” The stock purchase agreement will be finalized in Q4 2021 once all parties receive the required green light from regulators. As part of the announcement, Deutsche Boerse revealed that the acquisition was part …

Blockchain, the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), is not the right solution for a central bank digital currency, according to an economist at Switzerland’s central bank. Carlos Lenz, chief economist at the Swiss National Bank, argued that blockchain-based decentralization features are not efficient for a state-controlled digital currencies like a digital franc, German-language Swiss newspaper The Handelszeitung reported Thursday. The economist reportedly noted that there is a large number of technological opportunities for building a digital franc. “One could imagine a direct account with the National Bank. Not that we want to do that, but that would be …

The central bank of France — Banque de France — is continuing its work on the development of a European central bank digital currency (CBDC). On Monday the bank officially announced the successful completion of a CBDC experiment with major Switzerland-based cryptocurrency bank SEBA. Conducted in collaboration with SEBA, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, and Luxembourg central securities depository LuxCSD, the experiment used a CBDC to simulate the settlement and delivery of listed securities on TARGET2-Securities (T25), a European securities settlement engine. SEBA purchased securities from Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, with post-trade settlement managed by LuxCSD. Related: Digital euro offers better …