The CV VC Top 50 Report 2022 is an annual assessment undertaken by CV VC AG to provide an overview of Crypto Valley developments. It shows that Crypto Valley, which includes Switzerland and Liechtenstein, is the most mature blockchain hub.
It continued to expand steadily in 2022 because of an exemplary regulatory jurisdiction and a determined decentralized mindset exhibited by the 1135 entities building from there. The CV VC Top 50 Report 2022 is a testament to the fact that blockchain is evolving into a multi-billion dollar industry in Crypto Valley. While Swiss-based, the Top 50 have an international footprint.
- The valuation of the Top 50 entities is $185B. This splits into $175.6B for blockchain platforms by market capitalization and $9.7B for companies by equity valuation
- Despite the ongoing market volatility, commercial blockchain companies in Crypto Valley have defied typical industry trends, with an impressive 55% growth in market valuations. The market cap for platforms in the Top 50 significantly decreased by 71%
- There are 9 unicorns in Crypto Valley, of which 7 are blockchain platforms and 2 are commercial companies. This is the first time that commercial blockchain companies have joined the unicorn herd which is indicative of the maturity of Crypto Valley
- The Top 50 is split 26 to 24 platforms vs. commercial companies, indicating the symbiotic nature of the very assured blockchain ecosystem in Crypto Valley
Crypto Valley is leading the charge for decentralized, trust-based systems. Through blockchain technology and infrastructure-building initiatives, it aims to create greater efficiencies in tackling global issues. Other key metrics from the Top 50 Report 2022 include:
- 7 blockchain platforms in Crypto Valley are Unicorns. They are building infrastructure that ensures privacy, freedom, financial inclusion, transparency, and efficiency. They will allow billions of people to create, transact, and own digital value
- 2 commercial companies in Crypto Valley are Unicorns. Gnosis Safe – manager of digital assets on Ethereum and 21.co, the world’s largest ETP issuer
- The number of companies in Crypto Valley is steady at 1135. There were 190 new firms registered, and 183 ceased which is a balanced achievement given the global market turmoil
- Employment has dipped just 4% across Crypto Valley during a period when tech employment is constricting globally.
- The Top 50 entities for 2022 increased funding by 2.7%, reaching $3.2B
Crypto Valley is not compromising on the core principles of the blockchain technology space: decentralization, openness, and transparency. The encompassing regulatory environment in Switzerland and Liechtenstein is acknowledged as one of the major assets for the attractiveness and success of the Crypto Valley. As a pioneering example, Switzerland’s DLT Act has provided the foundation for other countries to follow as more governments seek to adopt similar approaches. While some might worry that regulation may chill innovation, Switzerland’s standards are a distinct advantage, not alone for participants in Crypto Valley but for blockchain business positioning.
Crypto Valley is at the forefront of driving progress for components that form the core infrastructure behind Web3, from decentralized identity solutions to zero-knowledge systems designed to maximize scalability and staking services.New Top 50 entries reflect this progress in Crypto Valley, such as:
- Iamx, the first Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) solution provider to incentivize consumer activity and comply with the strictest security standards
- Intmax is a roll-up project that will evolve Ethereum into something that can be used by online citizens worldwide as infrastructure principally for payments, including other forms of internet-native ownership through NFTs and community-governed tokens
- Bridge Tower, which is bridging the value of blockchain staking and DeFi products seamlessly to institutional investors
Crypto Valley has many world firsts. As well as having the world’s first fully regulated Crypto Banks SEBA and Sygnum, these banks are becoming more deeply connected with decentralized finance. For example, they transform company shares and oil paintings into digital assets that trade directly between sellers and buyers on blockchains.
- They are joined by new players such as Fiat24, which allows clients to attach a ‘non-fungible token’ personal identity to a digital wallet containing both traditional money and cryptocurrencies, and access to decentralized financial investments via the metaverse
- The world’s largest issuer of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs) is Switzerland’s largest blockchain company unicorn. Founded in 2018, 21.co launched the world’s first USD Yield ETP and the world’s first Bitcoin and Gold ETP on the SIX Swiss Exchange. Displaying the ability of Swiss expansion, it released the first crypto ETFs in Australia. A recent $25m funding round is a testament to early success and its ability to thrive in both bull and bear markets
- A first blockchain on Shopify? Yes – energy-efficient Tezos blockchain NFTs on Shopify
- A first to talk with the US SEC? The Web3 Foundation has unlocked a new way of achieving token morphing for increasingly decentralized projects such as Polkadot. Digital assets initially offered and sold to achieve fundraising objectives no longer need to possess security-like characteristics in order to use this innovative theory. Web3 Foundation has shared this theory many times with the SEC and has announced that DOT, the native digital asset of the Polkadot blockchain, has morphed. In its view, offers and sales of DOT are not securities transactions, and DOT is not a security. It is merely software
- Dfinity announced the Internet Computer’s mainnet integration with Bitcoin, bringing smart contract functionality to the cryptocurrency
It’s not only about infrastructure, protocols, crypto, and fintech in Crypto Valley, but there are also many firsts in the utility of blockchain for other industries.
- Axedras will immutably document gold from the mine to the end-user
- Deon Digital is turning contractual processes into software
- Vault Security is the world’s first blockchain-based lost & found app for secure property management.
Crypto Valley is synonymous with assuredness and precision, enabling pioneers to operate with certainty.
- Multi-signature wallet protocol Gnosis Safe raised $100m in 2022. Its Unicorn status is focused on a web3 ecosystem that is much more secure and accessible to a wider range of users. It is building safety nets such as account recovery and hybrid custody to make web3 more approachable for many more user groups
- Crypto Finance AG now offers technical support for 20 blockchains and hundreds of tokens available for trade and custody through its FINMA-regulated brokerage service, giving clients seamless market access across a wide range of digital asset venues
The CV VC Top 50 Report delves into the innovations which characterize the mindset of Crypto Valley, such as that its pioneers are focussed on the fundamental of blockchain – decentralization. The Top 50 Report shows the opportunity for DeFi and DAOs. It presents in-depth articles from leading players highlighting the resilience and mindset of Crypto Valley regarding blockchain endeavors. From a geographical point of view, Zug remains the heart of Crypto Valley, followed by Zürich and other clusters in Liechtenstein, Geneva, Ticino, Vaud, and Neuchatel.
The CV VC Top 50 Report is created by CV VC AG. The periodic report, now in its 8th edition, focuses on market fundamentals and valuation developments in Crypto Valley, which includes Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The report is produced in collaboration with Bank Frick. In this year’s Top 50 report, the valuation methodology separated entities into consistent groups: blockchain platforms on the one hand and commercial companies on the other hand. The separation of the two categories is important because of the very nature of the two types of entities, and, importantly, their different valuation logic.
Top 50 Crypto and Blockchain Companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein
AllianceBlock
At AllianceBlock, we are bridging the gap between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi), by remedying issues that exist in both spheres and linking them more closely together. We see the future of finance as an integrated system in which the best of both worlds can work together to increase capital flows and technological innovation.
Anoma
Anoma is a sovereign, proof-of-stake blockchain protocol that enables private, asset-agnostic cash and private bartering among any number of parties. Anoma is part of a growing global effort to impede non-consensual usage of data by third parties, prevent nation-states from weaponizing the financial system, and empower humankind to solve existentiallythreatening collective action problems that transcend national borders.
Aragon
Create value without borders or intermediaries. Aragon is being built because so that decen-tralized organizations can solve the world’s worst problems. Aragon is a project that aims to disintermediate the creation and mainte-nance of organizational structures by using blockchain technology. The company wants to empower people across the world to easily and securely manage their organizations. Aragon provides the tools for anyone to become an entrepreneur and run their own organization, to take control of their own lives.
Auditchain Labs AG
Auditchain is a decentralized accounting, reporting, audit, and analysis protocol that automates and provides proof of assurance on the world’s financial and business information. It’s the world’s first Web3 financial disclosure infrastructure for digital asset and enterprise assurance and disclosure. The AuditChain Protocol incentivizes the creation and consumption of Process Control NFTs that automate business and intelligence automation
Bancor
Bancor introduced the first-ever decentralized exchange (DEX) based on automated market makers (AMMs). The protocol offers users safe and simple access to DeFi yields while enabling algorithmic, decentralized trading for integrated tokens. Bancor is the only decentralized trading protocol that allows depositors to earn money with single-token exposure and zero risk of impermanent loss.
Cardano
Cardano is a decentralised public blockchain and cryptocurrency project and is fully open source. Cardano is developing a smart contract platform which seeks to deliver more advanced features than any protocol previously developed.
CasperLabs
The Casper Network is a fully decentralized (permis-sionless), scalable, and highly secure Proof-of-Stake layer 1 blockchain. Casper has solved the layer 1 trilemma; it is secure, fully decentralized, and scalable/fast. Powered by Highway, an inno-vative, correct-by-construction (CBC) Casper-ba-sed Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol, Casper is leveraging popular workflows, innovative deve-loper tools and multiple programming langua-ges. Casper makes blockchain services easier to use, more upgradable and more predictable, thus removing barriers to mainstream adoption.
Concordium
When launched in 2021, the Concordium bloc-kchain will be a Level-1, Proof-of-stake, regula-tory-compliant, enterprisegrade blockchain with verified identity of users built-in at the protocol level and with application of zero-knowledge proofs. Technological innovations will enhance its performance and allow the blockchain to be fast without compromising security, be scalable, offer interoperability and it’s partial synchronicity adjust to the speed of the internet and ensure that Concordium won´t break under any circumstances.
COSMOS
Interchain Foundation, a Swiss non-profit, which is responsible for co-ordinating fundraising and allocating funds to get the network off the ground. The foundation will suggest a distribution of Atoms according to the results of the fundraiser. Users will ultimately decide the distribution for them-selves when they run the software. The Interchain Foundation will suggest that 5% of the Atoms go to its initial donors, 10% go to the Interchain Foundation, 10% go to the company developing most of the software, and the remaining 75% to be distributed according to the results of the private and publicfundraisers.
Deon Digital
Deon Digital leverages more than 10 years of academic research, a world-class team, and the power of distributed ledger technology to enable enterprises to turn contracts into smart legal contracts that are stored, analyzed, executed, and monitored securely, privately, and automatically beyond organizational boundaries. This dramatically reduces the amount of time that is spent reconciling data.
DFINITY
The DFINITY Foundation is a not-for-profit organi-zation based in Zurich, Switzerland, that oversees research centers in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Zurich. Our mission is to build, promote, and maintain the Internet Computer — and by doing so, improve the world. The Internet Computer extends the functionality of the internet from connecting billions of people to also providing millions of developers and entrepreneurs with a public compute platform — creating a revo-lutionary new way to build software, DeFi and open internet services. In turn, this generational shift in computing aims to return the internet back to its free and open roots.
DIA
DIA (Decentralised Information Asset) is an open-source, financial information platform that utilizes crypto-economic incentives to source and validate data. Market actors can supply, share, and use financial and digital asset data. DIA’s mission is to democratize financial data, similar to what Wikipedia has done in the broader information space. DIA data sources and methodologies are transparent and publicly accessible to everyone.
Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downti-me, censorship, fraud or third-party interference. These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property. This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts. or promises, move funds in accordance with instruc-tions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middleman or counterparty risk.
Golem
Golem is a global, open source, decentralized supercomputer that anyone can access. It is made up of the combined power of users machines, from PCs to entire data centers. Golem creates a decentralized sharing economy of computing power and supplies software developers with a flexible, reliable and cheap source of computing power.
HDAC
Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, Hdac Technology AG is a blockchain technology company that aims to be a digital currency and asset hub that provides a platform where fiat currencies around the world can be securely issued and enables businesses to interoperate with each other. Rizon Blockchain has strong network background and is capable of boosting the inflow of the ecosystem participants and the diversification of business.
IAMX AG
IAMX is a token-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) and authentication system, enabling 1Click-Fulfillment transactions that are legally binding on the state/national level. Their vision is to empower everyone on Earth to realize their human right to have an identity and their mission is to protect the human right of every individual to hold, control, and own their personal identity.
Intmax
Intmax is a Rollup project that will evolve Ethereum into something that can be used by online citizens worldwide as infrastructure principally for payments, but also for other forms of internet-native ownership through NFTs and community-governed tokens. Its design is based on algorithms aimed at achieving scalability for billions of users, which is currently extremely challenging with traditional zkRollups.
Liquity
Liquity is a decentralized borrowing protocol that allows you to draw 0% interest loans against Ether used as collateral. Loans are paid out in LUSD – a USD pegged stablecoin, and need to maintain a minimum collateral ratio of only 110%. Liquity creates a more capital-efficient and user-friendly way to borrow stablecoins. Furthermore, Liquity is governance-free, ensuring that the protocol remains decentralized.
Lisk
Develop and publish blockchain applications with your own sidechains on the open-source Lisk Platform. Promotion of new technology developments and applications, in particular promotion and maintenance of new open decen-tralized software architectures. In the foreground – but not exclusively – is the promotion and development of the so-called Lisk protocol and the corresponding technology as well as the promotion and support of applications using the Lisk protocol.
Minima
Minima is a secure, scalable, and completely decentralized public blockchain, that can run completely on a mobile or IoT device without any third parties – no external miners, validators, or producers. Minima will launch its mainnet in 2022 and has the ambition to have millions of nodes, creating a decentralized web architecture for the future.
NEAR Protocol
NEAR Protocol is a scalable blockchain designed to provide the performance and user experience necessary to bridge the gap to mainstream adoption of decentralized applications. Unlike other next-generation blockchains, this network has been built from the ground up to be the easiest in the world for both developers and their end-users while still providing the scalability necessary to serve those users.
Partisia Blockchain
Partisia Blockchain is the world’s most advanced zeroknowledge blockchain. Its WEB 3.0 public blockchain is built for trust, transparency, privacy, and speed of light finalization. Partisia Blockchain is a unique combination of a high-performance blockchain that functions as a bedrock for efficient, scalable, and robust orchestration of MPC. This combination of blockchain and MPC technologies provide an optimal foundation for native privacy-preserving applications.
SKALE
SKALE is built to bring the power of Ethereum to billions of users. It is a 100% decentralized network that will bring Web3, NFTs, and DeFi to users through a world of interconnected, limitless SKALE chains. Developers use SKALE’s highly configurable platform to run smart contracts 100% on SKALE chains without centralized dependencies. Plus, SKALE’s unique pooled security model with ~$1B staked enables developers to deliver a high-speed, seamless user experience without gas fees or latency.
Solana
Solana is a highly functional open source project that banks on blockchain technology’s permis-sionless nature to provide decentralized finan-ce (DeFi) solutions. While the idea and initial work on the project began in 2017, Solana was officially launched in March 2020 by the Sola-na Foundation with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Solana protocol is designed to facilitate decentralized app (DApp) creation.
Status
The Status Network builds decentralized technologies ranging from protocol-level infrastructure to consumer applications, forming an open-source, peer-to-peer technology stack. The open set of projects contains products, tooling, and infrastructure to enable local societies and economies to thrive, allow others to build new products and services suited to their specific needs, and help local communities to take back sovereignty and remove the reliance on third parties.
Tezos
Tezos is a self-upgradable and energy-efficient Proof of Stake blockchain with a proven record of security and scalability. In 2021, Tezos recorded over 50 million transactions with a carbon footprint of just 17 individuals. Seamlessly adopting innovations without disruption, Tezos is designed to evolve and built to empower. The Tezos Foundation is located in the Crypto Valley.
Validation Cloud AG
Validation Clooud is the leading enterprise-grade Web3 infrastructure company, offering node- and staking-as-aservice. Our technology platform, Javelin, delivers superior read/write & propagation speeds on blockchains, infinite scalability, and global resilience; solving problems for networks, DApp developers, and validators.
Velas
Velas is the world’s fastest EVM compatible chain. Velas is a full hybrid EVM/eBPF chain of Solana and Ethereum, that inherited the best from both: security, scalability, high performance, 1.2- sec finality, extremely low fees, and Solidity support.
Waves
Waves creates the economics of free, perfect and instant. The Waves Platform is a global public blockchain platform, founded in 2016. Waves Platform’s mission is to reinvent the DNA of entrepreneurship around the world by providing a shared infrastructure, offering easy-to-use, highly functional tools to make blockchain available to every person or orga-nisation that can benefit from it.
Web 3.0
Our mission is to nurture cutting-edge applications for decentralized web software protocols. Our passion is delivering Web 3.0, a decentralized and fair internet where users control their own data, identity, and destiny. We support Web 3.0 teams and open-source projects through funding, advocacy, research, and collaborations. Our flagship protocols are Polkadot and Kusama.
21.Co
21.co is the world’s leader in providing access to crypto through easy-to-use products. 21.co is the parent company of 21Shares, the world’s largest issuer of cryptocurrency ETPs – which is powered by Onyx, a proprietary technology platform used to issue and operate cryptocurrency ETPs for 21Shares and third parties – in addition to Amun, a token provider focused on making the DeFi world more accessible. The company was founded in 2018 by Hany Rashwan and Ophelia Snyder and is registered in Zug, with offices in Zurich and New York.
Aave
Aave (fun fact: the name is taken from the Finnish word for “ghost”) is a decentralised, open-source, and non-custodial liquidity proto-col on Ethereum. Depositors earn interest by providing liquidity to lending pools, while borrowers can obtain loans by tapping into these pools with variable and stable interest rate options. Aave Protocol is unique in that it tokenizes deposits as aTokens, which accrue interest in real time. It also features access to Flash Loans and Credit Delegation as unco-llateralised loan options.
Bitcoin Suisse
Bitcoin Suisse is the Swiss crypto-finance and technology pioneer and market leader. Bitcoin Suisse has helped to shape the crypto and blockchain ecosystem in Switzerland and has been a driving force in the development of the Crypto Valley. As a regulated Swiss financial intermediary, Bitcoin Suisse offers prime brokerage, trading, custody, lending, staking, and other crypto-financial services for private and institutional clients.
Bittrex Global
Bittrex Global provides a proven and secure plat-form for its customers to access the opportu-nities of digital asset trading. Built on Bittrex’s cutting-edge technology, Bittrex Global provides an institutional grade experience for professional and novice customers alike.
BridgeTower Capital
BridgeTower Capital has developed a global marketplace to uniquely bring products that are constructed with compliant regulatory adherence to enable an institutional gateway to Staked Securities, NFTs, Custom Turnkey offerings, Financial products, and Web 3.0 entities. BridgeTower operates more than 7,000 of its own staking nodes and owns servers utilizing 100 percent renewable energy.
Crypto Finance
The Crypto Finance Group provides institutional and professional investors products and services with a level of quality, reliability, and security that is unique in the digital asset space today. The group provides asset management, with the first regulated asset manager for crypto asset funds authorised by FINMA; brokerage services for 24/7 crypto asset trading; and crypto asset storage infrastructure and toke-nisation solutions. Since its founding in 2017, the group has been recognised several times, including as a Crypto Valley Top 50 blockchain company, Top 100 Swiss Start-up, and 2019 Swiss FinTech Award winner.
Curve
Curve is an exchange liquidity pool on Ethe-reum (like Uniswap) designed for (1) extre-mely efficient stablecoin trading (2) low risk, supplemental fee income for liquidity providers, without an opportunity cost. Curve allows users to trade between DAI and USDC with a bespoke low slippage, low fee algorithm designed specifically for stablecoins and earn fees.
Fiat24
R Saphirstein AG is a Swiss financial institution directly regulated by FINMA. Fiat24 is a payment application developed by SR Saphirstein AG for its retail customers. Fiat24 attempts to use blockchain technology to change the way existing banks operate and thus increase efficiency.
METACO
METACO is the leading provider of security-critical infrastructure enabling financial institutions to enter the digital asset ecosystem. The company is trusted by top banks, exchanges and infras-tructure providers globally.
Mt Pelerin
Mt Pelerin is providing products and services bridging the crypto world with traditional finance. It was bootstrapped by its own community through equity crowdfunding that raised more than $2M in 2018. Since then, Mt Pelerin has become one of the leading actors in asset tokenization with its Bridge Protocol platform and provides unique crypto services through its mobile app Bridge Wallet. It is currently working on creating a tokenized full-reserve financial institution in Switzerland.
Nexo
Nexo is the world’s leading regulated finan-cial institution for digital assets with $4 billion in assets under management. The company’s mission is to maximize the value and utility of cryptocurrencies by offering taxefficient Instant Crypto Credit Lines™, a high-yield Earn on Cryp-to & Fiat suite, and sophisticated trading and OTC capabilities, while providing the top-tier custodial insurance and military-grade secu-rity of the Nexo Wallet. Nexo has processed $5+ billion for 1,000,000+ users across more than 200 jurisdictions.
Notabene ID Gmbh
Notabene helps businesses comply with crypto regulations that are coming into effect now. They are the first platform to provide full compliance with the Travel Rule. Notabene’s current offering consists of a unified API and dashboard helping compliance officers at exchanges manage risk for both Travel Rule and non-custodial transactions.
Safe (gnosis)
Safe (Gnosis spin-off) is on a mission to unlock digital ownership for everyone in web3. Be it DAOs, enterprises, retail, or institutional users, everyone deserves robust infrastructure to protect and coordinate value. With Safe protocol’s ecosystem and flagship web and mobile products, we continue to build a universal standard for the custody of assets, data, and identity for users to collaborate as more
empowered owners.
SEBA Bank
SEBA Bank is a pioneer in the financial industry and is the only global smart bank providing a fully universal suite of regulated banking services in the emerging digital economy. In August 2019, SEBA Bank received a Swiss banking and securities dealers license, and in September 2021 the CISA license. The broad, vertically integrated spectrum of services combined with the highest security standards, make SEBA Bank’s value proposition unique.
SwissBorg
SwissBorg is democratizing wealth management by making it fun, fair, and community-centric. SwissBorg holds two licenses to provide Virtual Currency Exchange and Virtual Currency Wallets internationally. We believe that blockchain technology can empower everyone to control their wealth and that this is the next step towards a world of decentralized nations, where every individual is welcome and is fairly rewarded for their contributions.
Sygnum
Sygnum is the world’s first digital asset bank, and a digital asset specialist with global reach. With Sygnum Bank AG’s Swiss banking licence, as well as Sygnum Pte Ltd’s capital markets services (CMS) licence in Singapore, Sygnum empowers institu-tional and private qualified investors, corporates, banks and other financial institutions to invest in the digital asset economy with complete trust.
Taurus
Taurus is a technology company providing end-to-end digital asset infrastructure for financial insti-tutions. Multi-assets, multi-blockchains. EU market leader with more than 1 bank out of 2 running Taurus infrastructure. We offer a suite of applica-tions to manage the entire lifecycle of any digital assets (private assets, crypto assets and digital currencies) in one platform: issuance, tokenisa-tion, custody and blockchain communication. Easy to deploy or integrate: API-based, availa-ble on premise or SaaS. Future-proof solutions: our engineers are among the few teams in the world that master the full technology stack across software development, secure DevOps, crypto-graphy and blockchain technology.
ThorWallet
THORWallet DEX is a multi-chain non-custodial wallet that enables you to hold and swap native crypto assets across chains and earn passive income on them by providing liquidity using THORChain’s protocol. At the same time, the app includes earn functionalities like liquidity pooling or crosschain savings accounts. All non-custodial, pure DeFi.
Wyden
Wyden (previously AlgoTrader) is the global leader in institutional digital asset trading technology. By covering the entire trade lifecycle and supporting seamless custody, core banking and portfolio management system integration as well as full trade lifecycle automation, the Wyden platform streamlines digital assets trading. Wyden offers integrated infrastructure solutions that meet the highest institutional needs.
