The ICO Summit, an event hosted by SMART VALOR, brought together many of the leading experts in crypto funding to share their experience and best practice for successful ICO execution.

The sold out event reached over 2500 participants from across the world, livestreamed from the epicentre of happening in Zurich. They heard the newest insights such as how Bitcoin will evolve in the view of the recent ban coming from China and why Switzerland is set to lead the way as the global crypto currency capital.

The event opened with a keynote from William Mougayar, one of the key thought leaders in the crypto financing field and also a researcher and an investor in the Bitcoin and Blockchain space. In the second half of the day 25 promising start-ups were pitching their token-oriented business model in front of the Swiss traditional and crypto investors.

SMART VALOR CEO, Olga Feldmeier, hosted a morning presentation on Swiss Finance in Transition, discussing Switzerland’s potential to become a global crypto finance capital, departing from traditional off-shore banking model. As one of the major figures in bringing about the first significant regulatory case licensing of crypto currency custodian (Xapo), Feldmeier is well placed to comment on the changing finance industry. Feldmeier also joined an afternoon panel discussion on the Investor Journey: From Bitcoin to VC, alongside Richard Muirhead, General Partner at Open Ocean, Charles Hoskinson, CEO at Input Output, which was moderated by Eric van der Kleij, CEO at the Centre for Digital Revolution.

Despite recent claims that China is set to ban Bitcoin, Feldmeier, believes this will not have a negative effect on the industry: “Even if China try to clamp down on Bitcoin, it will not hurt the industry. We’ve seen a similar thing in Russia several years ago, when Putin threatened a four year prison sentence on anyone who touched Bitcoin. The only result was that Russia became one of the countries with the largest volumes on localbitcoins.com.”

“It was fantastic to host The ICO Summit alongside so many other innovative companies in the Blockchain industry,” says Feldmeier. “SMART VALOR’s mission is ultimately to make investment accessible via its Blockchain-based decentralised network, which enables users to create and distribute tokenized investments. We’d like to build on the success of this year’s ICO Summit and establish it as a truly global crypto event.”

Five key takeaways from event delegates include:

• Bitcoin will survive and thrive even if there is a full ban in China - Olga Feldmeier, CEO, SMART VALOR

• Switzerland is leading the way for ICOs - Nicolai Oster, Head of ICO, Bitcoin Suisse

• Within a year, tokens will be recognized as a new and different asset class - William Mougayar, General Partner, Virtual Capital Ventures

• Investing in ICOs is less risky than investing in startups because you are investing in a community - Jamie Burke, Founder and CEO, Outlier Ventures

The full event live stream is recorded and available on the website: www.ICOsummit.ch