Following many meetings and discussions with institutionals including banks mostly in Switzerland, I identified that institutional custody and adoption of ATOM by institutionals is significantly lagging behind compared to several other crypto projects, including some with lower market capitalisation than ATOM. For example, most of these institutionals support ETH, ADA, DOT, SOL or even XTZ but they don’t support ATOM.
Following further research and discussions with these institutionals, I identified the reasons why ATOM is lagging behind in institutional custody. The foundations of projects such as Polkadot, Cardano, Tezos and others are based in Switzerland like the ICF, however there are some major differences. The people leading the Polkadot, Cardano or Tezos foundation are based in Switzerland, are well-known within the crypto community here, and have been doing business development with all these institutionals to add custody or even staking support for DOT, ADA, XTZ and other tokens.
These institutionals explained to me that regarding ATOM they didn’t really have any ‘anchor entity’ to discuss and collaborate. After these findings, I contacted the ICF Foundation Council to present my project to accelerate the ATOM institutional custody and bring it at least to the same level as DOT, ADA, XTZ or SOL. The ICF FC discussed my project during a recent meeting, they thanked me for my efforts and recognised the issues found but I was told that the ICF has little bandwidth for this project and also that they ICF doesn’t really collaborate in this way with banks. I suggested that the bandwidth is not an issue since I can support this project in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, given the network I have developed over many years working at the PwC and Bank Frick blockchain labs, and being based near the Crypto Valley. In addition, since I’ve been involved within the Cosmos ecosystem also for many years, I think I’m well positioned to coordinate between Cosmos Hub and institutionals to drive and accelerate ATOM institutional custody which I think it is an urgent and very important issue.
Moreover, from my work experience at Bank Frick I know well all the internal processes of banks including due diligence, compliance department and other steps required before adding custody for a new token, so this would also help when coordinating with banks to add custody support for ATOM.Metaco and Taurus are the global leaders for institutional crypto custody for banks and central banks and both are based in Switzerland. I know and I have met the founders of these companies. While Taurus recently integrated support for ATOM, Metaco is working with larger institutionals, notably central banks also, so I could present ATOM and Cosmos Hub to the founders and also prove to them that there is client demand by leveraging contacts at several Swiss banks interested in adding custody for ATOM.I have met and I’m in touch with most fully focused crypto banks in Switzerland with banking licences from FINMA, as well as with traditional Swiss banks offering crypto services.
I have had already many meetings, calls and discussions with them for months about ATOM and the Cosmos Hub and ecosystem, and I’m well-known already for coordinating with them and being a link to the ICF as well. So this grant is not only to cover future work for a year but also to cover previous unpaid work.In addition, I know and have met the founders of the leading crypto regulation and compliance companies both in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Given that crypto regulations in Switzerland, and Liechtenstein with the Blockchain Act, are likely the most advanced globally, these crypto regulatory firms are among the leading companies in this domain globally. Leveraging these contacts would also accelerate the coordination to add ATOM custody for institutionals and since they receive many client requests and they do a lot of referrals they could also support with recommending ATOM for their clients as well as helping to reduce regulatory risks for ATOM, the Cosmos Hub and complex upcoming issues related to Consumer chains.
Many contacts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein told me that after the current issues with crypto focused banks in the USA, all this capital and companies are now looking for alternatives and they confirmed to me that many are considering Switzerland and Liechtenstein. While Switzerland and Liechtenstein were already one of the main hubs globally for crypto institutional custody, if a significant amount of capital from these crypto focused USA banks migrates to Switzerland and Liechtenstein it could then become the leading hub for institutional crypto custody, so it is critical that ATOM is well supported and accessible for institutionals to avoid unnecessarily slowing down institutional adoption of ATOM.
As mentioned above, this grant will be to cover future work for one year, to cover also all the previous unpaid work already done as well as expenses related to this work such as travel expenses, preparing high quality presentations, organising and coordinating meetings and interviews, connecting the different relevant entities such as crypto institutional custody providers, crypto compliance firms, banks, the ICF and other relevant Cosmos Hub entities, and other additional or unexpected expenses.
