EthereumZuri.ch 2024

Fireside chat with Claudio J. Tessone and Alexander Brunner
04-05, 10:15–10:35 (Europe/Zurich), Surge Stage

In a fireside chat, Alexander Brunner of Home of Blockchain.swiss and Prof. Claudio Tessone of the UZH Blockchain Center sit down together to explore the shifting landscape of blockchain and cryptocurrency in Switzerland in the face of the European Union's new Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCAR) directive. This discussion comes at a crucial time as Switzerland's Crypto Valley celebrates a decade of significant achievements. The conversation will address pressing questions about Switzerland's future as a blockchain leader. They'll delve into whether the EU's regulatory moves, highlighted by MiCAR, signal a competitive threat or a new realm of opportunities for Switzerland. Key points include MiCAR's potential as a regulatory framework, its gaps, and its impact on Switzerland as a major blockchain innovator. Will Switzerland be able to maintain its edge in the blockchain arena amidst Europe's tightening grip on crypto regulation?

Claudio J. Tessone is Professor of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies at the Informatics Department, University of Zurich. He is co-founder and Chairman of the UZH Blockchain Center. He is also incharge of NetSci Society. He holds a PhD in Physics (on complex systems) and an Habilitation on "Complex socio-economic systems" from ETH Zurich. He is an expert in the modelling of complex socio-economic, and socio-technical systems from an interdisciplinary perspective. He is interested in the link between microscopic agent behaviour and the rules these agents abide to, and the global, emergent properties of socio-economic and socio-technical systems.
Blockchain-based systems and cryptocurrencies are the main pillar of his research (being among the first to study them). This includes crypoeconomics (from financial aspects to meso- and macro- properties, such as withstanding, emergent centralisation), big-data blockchain analytics and forensics, design of blockchain-based systems, and characterisation of economic incentives that are present (by design or set inadvertently) in them.

Alexander studied economics before working in alternative investments.
He is the author of reports and a book about crypto, blockchain and Web3.
He is the president of “Home of Blockchain.swiss”, a Swiss non-profit that promotes the Swiss blockchain
ecosystem.
Alexander is the principal of Brunner Digital, an advisory firm for fintech and Web3.
He is an international speaker and was a Member of Parliament in Zurich. He was also a commander in the
Swiss army.

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