April 2018

ConsenSys to chair new Enterprise Blockchain Working Group, join Regulatory and Policy Working Group

Zug, Switzerland – 25 April, 2018 – The Crypto Valley Association (CVA) is proud to announce that ConsenSys is joining the Association as a Strategic Partner.

Comprised of over 750 blockchain experts, entrepreneurs, computer scientists, designers, engineers, consultants, educators, and business leaders with delivery experience across six continents, ConsenSys is the world’s largest blockchain venture production studio. Its vision is to use blockchain technology to create a world in which distributed applications and the Ethereum world computer support a new class of frictionless, global commerce with inclusion for all.

Oliver Bussmann, President of the Crypto Valley Association, said: “We are delighted to welcome ConsenSys as a Strategic Partner. With its size and scope, ConsenSys occupies a special place in the blockchain community, both in terms of development of public blockchain on Ethereum as well as in the enterprise and government blockchain space. The company has an incredible depth of understanding and expertise not just in the technology, but also in the universe of blockchain use cases as well as the broader implications of decentralization. As a Strategic Partner, we believe ConsenSys will bring great value to our members and to the wider Crypto Valley ecosystem.”

Joseph Lubin, CEO of ConsenSys, said: “We are very excited to become a Strategic Partner of the CVA. ConsenSys has always had a special affinity for the Crypto Valley, which has been the home of the Ethereum Foundation since its founding in 2014. We have watched the Crypto Valley ecosystem grow to become one of the most important and respected pillars of the global blockchain community. The CVA has played a key role supporting this growth through its community building activities as well as thought leadership. We look forward to working closely with the CVA on its mission to promote a successful and sustainable blockchain industry in Switzerland as well as support the broader global crypto community.”

As a Strategic Partner, ConsenSys will chair the CVA’s new Enterprise Blockchain working group, which will serve as a forum for CVA enterprise, corporate and other members to share case studies of enterprise blockchain projects and examine current and future use cases.

Ken Timsit, Managing Director at ConsenSys, said: “Over the last 12 months, ConsenSys has been very active in Europe, where we now have four offices and subsidiaries, and over two dozen ongoing projects in eight countries. We are delighted to be supporting the CVA and look forward to working with peers as we examine the use of blockchain technology to reinvent industry value chains and create new business models.”

ConsenSys, which through The Brooklyn Project and other initiatives has been actively involved in the blockchain policy debate in the US and in Europe, will also be joining the CVA Regulatory and Policy Working Group.

Crypto Valley Association President Oliver Bussmann is available for interviews

ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin is available for interviews

About Crypto Valley Association:
Founded in January 2017, the Crypto Valley Association is a not-for-profit association established to support the development and dissemination of cryptographic technologies, blockchain, and other distributed ledger technologies by supporting startups and other companies in Zug, Switzerland and internationally. Crypto Valley’s mission is to shape an open, free, and prosperous economy spanning multiple sectors.

Board members of the Crypto Valley Association are:
Oliver Bussmann, Founder & Managing Partner Bussmann Advisory; Vasily Suvorov, Vice President Technology Strategy Luxoft; Professor René Huesler, Director of the Lucerne School of Information Technology, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts; Sam Chadwick, Director Financial & Risk Innovation Thomson Reuters; Søren Fog, CEO iProtus.

Crypto Valley Conference 20-22 June:
The Crypto Valley Association (CVA), in cooperation with Lucerne School of Applied Sciences, will hold the Crypto Valley Conference in Theatre Casino in Zug, Switzerland, from 20-22 June 2018. The conference brings together leading researchers, developers, lawyers and innovators from across the globe to share and discuss state-of-the-art developments and advances in the blockchain technology ecosystem.

About ConsenSys:
ConsenSys is a venture production studio building decentralized products, platforms and infrastructure for blockchain ecosystems, focusing primarily on Ethereum. ConsenSys is interested in the identification, acquisition, and development of talent and projects on an ongoing basis, in addition to the development of internal projects and consulting work. ConsenSys is based in NYC, with offices in Paris, Dubai, London, Dublin, San Francisco, Toronto, Sydney, Manila, and other major cities around the globe.

Follow ConsenSys: GitHub, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, https://consensys.net/

Media Contact:

Liam Murphy
Account Supervisor // Wachsman
liam@wachsman.com
+353 87 119 2107

Better late than never, as the saying goes: on the evening of 23 April we released our Q1 2018 newsletter with a wrap up of our major activities during the first three months of the year. As CVA Board member René Hüsler wrote in the editorial, this quarter it was all about regulation:

“If there was one theme that dominated the crypto world in Q1 it was ICO regulation.

This was certainly the case in Switzerland, where in February FINMA released its ICO guidelines, garnering a great deal of interest both domestically and in the global blockchain community.

At the CVA, one of our main responsibilities is to represent our members and the nascent blockchain industry in Switzerland in the regulatory and policy debate, and so it’s no wonder that we have been very active in the ICO area too.

As you can read below, in January, we released our ICO Code of Conduct. We also partnered with FINMA to organize and carry out a series of roundtables in Zug, Geneva and Lugano to explain the guidelines to the public, and collect feedback.

We are involved in the policy discussion in other ways too. We take part in the Swiss government‘s Fintech Roundtables. We are also a member of the Swiss Finance Ministry’s Blockchain Task Force. Participation in these and other forums allows us to add our perspectives and insights as we work to educate policy makers and support regulation that both protects consumers and fosters innovation.

Both of these goals are extremely important to our community.

We believe for example that the ICO will over time go mainstream to become an innovative and important way for companies to raise capital. Regulation will of course play a central role in this development.

Nor is it just ICOs. Our long-term goal at the CVA is to support a sustainable and successful blockchain industry in Switzerland, one that creates jobs and contributes to economic growth. Clearly legal and regulatory issues will play an important role in the broader industry too. (To get a flavor of what that means, just consider the thorny issues around how blockchain technology can be reconciled with GDPR in Europe.)

We will therefore continue to take part in the regulatory and policy discussion on all levels, and do our best shape the debate to the benefit of our members, our growing industry but also the users and consumers of this new technology we are building.

We encourage all members to stay on top of the issues, and where possible, join the debate too.

You can read the full newsletter here.