The law firm at the center of many recent Swiss initial coin offerings has teamed with a tech firm for what it views at the next level of the ICO boom in Switzerland, finews.com has learned.
For Luka Mueller (pictured below), it is a «money-printing machine»: the Daura token is the product of a joint venture between Zurich-based law firm MME and Swisscom, the domestic telecoms provider. MME, which is the is the go-to law firm for cryptocurrency providers in Switzerland including Tezos, wants to apply Daura to Swiss firms too paltry to make a splash in the capital market.
Swiss Legal Clarity
The two want to launch Switzerland's first blockchain share underpinning the token by next year. The move is meant to appeal to small- and medium-sized firms too small to command attention – and financing – from investment banks. The plan is for the Daura platform to enable issuers to raise capital with crypto shares on the blockchain. MME and Swisscom want Daura to eventually include corporate actions such as dividend payments and voting rights as well.
While Swisscom's digital ventures arm has built Daura's technology, MME is responsible for the legal aspects. The digital signature SwissID, which Swisscom is also helping to develop, can ensure a digital security that complies with Swiss securities law.
The token's legal certainty in Switzerland sets Daura apart from the boom in cryptocurrencies that MME has helped popularize – and which Mueller himself later criticized the structure of as «old, inflexible and stupid», according to «Reuters». Mueller describes Daura as «ICO 2.0».
Canadian Rival
Internationally, there are few comparisons: Equibit, a Toronto-based firm, is seeking to build a decentralized equity and debt marketplace on blockchain technology. Initially, Daura is intended merely as another issuing method beside classical instruments like stocks or bonds, though it is unclear where the coin will join up with the market or pricing mechanisms – the ecosystem.
This is the project's biggest hurdle, though the developers maintain that any securities or assets including stocks, bonds, crypto assets, or even legal tender can underpin Daura. While the project doesn't circumvent banks, it is an attack on Switzerland's stock exchange operator SIX, which is also evaluating what digitization and in particular blockchain means for its business. MME and Swisscom have already won Ticino's Cornèr Bank as well as derivatives boutique Leonteq.
