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The latest figures on the crypto industry are tough: The Swiss crypto and blockchain industry is said to have lost over 400 billion dollars in market value last year.
The loss corresponds to a minus of 70 percent compared to the previous year. And: 400 billion dollars would correspond to about half of Switzerland’s gross domestic product. However, these are not independently collected statistics. The latest figures come from the crypto industry itself, collected by the investment firm CVVC, which invests in blockchain companies throughout Switzerland and is considered the linchpin of Zug’s “Crypto Valley”. Mathias Ruch, Chev from CVVD, comments on the development in an interview.
SRF News: Mathias Ruch, you published the latest Swiss crypto industry figures in the Top 50 Report. Is the crypto industry in Switzerland doing so badly?
Mathias Ruch: It is important to me to talk about both the crypto and the blockchain industry; because in Switzerland not everything is just crypto. Overall, the decline in the value of the industry is also massive in Switzerland, but companies that issue tokens, such as Ethereum, are primarily responsible for this. It is also important to pay attention to the context here: American technology stocks also lost massively in value last year. So it’s not just the crypto industry, but the entire technology industry is affected by sharp falls in value.
Experts speak of a shift away from speculation with cryptocurrencies towards business models with real added value. Can you spot such a trend in your numbers?
There are blockchain companies in Switzerland that offer technological solutions and have come through the crisis very stably. This is reflected in the number of companies and their employees: in 2022, 1135 crypto and blockchain companies were based in Switzerland, with almost 6000 employees. That’s about the same number as last year. Companies like Bitcoin Suisse, Seba Bank and Sygnum were even able to grow last year, raise new capital and create new jobs.
Does that mean that the crisis of confidence in the crypto and blockchain industry is over?
Confidence in the cryptocurrency bubble and in the get-rich-overnight mentality is already tarnished. But I am convinced that the industry will regain trust in the long term. Because as I said: Blockchain technology does not only mean crypto. This is a technology that can technically create trust.
Pascal Lago conducted the interview.