Bitcoin Association Switzerland board member Luzius Meisser says he
believes the next wave of crypto innovation will focus on
stablecoins and security tokens. Meisser made his remarks during an
interview with Cointelegraph’s correspondent during the Crypto
Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland on Jan. 16.
Meisser is a computer scientist and economist who co-founded the
Bitcoin Association Switzerland in 2013, as well as an active
figure in the local crypto industry, serving as a member of the
board of directors for crypto-focused asset management and
brokerage firm Bitcoin Suisse AG, among other ventures.
In regard to the medium-term future of crypto, Meisser said he
expects the initial coin offering (ICOs) sector to undergo a significant change, noting
that until now ICO investors have had negligible rights, as they
have essentially been little more than donors.
With demands that their protections become more tangible,
Meisser predicted that security tokens can be expected to account
for the next, much more heavily regulated wave of the ICO
market.
“I would say payment and utility tokens are more or less over,
sometimes they make sense.”
Meisser’s exception was certain stablecoins, whose decentralized mechanisms
ensure they are legally considered to be payment or utility tokens
rather than securities. He isolated stablecoins more broadly,
whether they are securities or otherwise, as an important future
pillar of the blockchain industry, stating:
“Stablecoins are a precondition to enable average companies to
bring their equity onto the blockchain, because if they issue bonds
or shares they want to do so against U.S. dollars, euros or Swiss
francs, because those are the currencies they calculate in, not
Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH).”
In other remarks, Meisser noted that Swiss banks remain
very risk averse and thus try
not to touch crypto, and outlined several mechanisms local
enterprises and startups can use to circumvent banking difficulties
in the country. Notably, as reported, a Swiss startup last
fall sealed funding to set up a bank offering
cryptocurrency-related services.
As reported, Meisser’s views are shared by Bitcoin (BTC) bulls and Gemini crypto exchange founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who
have recently said they believe stablecoins and tokenized
securities are an important development for the digital currency
space.
The twins launched their own New York regulator-approved,
dollar-backed, ECR-20 compatible stablecoin, the Gemini dollar
(GUSD), last September —
one of a host of proliferating new stablecoins
notionally collateralized 1:1 by a major fiat currency.