MICHELE DE MICHELIS (and team)
CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER
FRAME ASSET MANAGEMENT
Score prediction: SWITZERLAND 1 – SPAIN 1 (Switzerland on penalties)
INVESTMENT INSIGHT:
Switzerland is an attractive place for those interested in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world. The country was, and is, one of the most crypto-friendly as it started to host blockchain companies in the Zug area back in 2013.
This region is famous as Crypto-Valley, whose name was related to the most famous Silicon Valley, and continues to host crypto start-ups thanks to the regulator that provided the legal certainty for this industry.
The last bi-annual report made by Crypto Valley Venture Capital (in collaboration with Inacta and PWC) showed that the pandemic has not stopped the growth of the industry into the country. In fact, for the first six months of 2020, the number of companies in Switzerland increased to 919 from 842 and the top 50 crypto firms have a combined value of $37.5bn.
Even the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX) is launching the Six Digital Exchange, the first end-to-end platform for digital assets. It is a milestone in the industry as this exchange will be the first market infrastructure worldwide that will offer fully integrated services for digital assets as trading, settlement and custody. Moreover the SDE will allow the tokenisation of securities in order to make untradeable assets into tradeable ones.
To increase the attraction for crypto and blockchain enthusiasts, some Cantons allowed the partial payment of taxes with Bitcoin and even some companies are starting to accept Bitcoin from costumers to pay their bills. Also, in some area (like Zug, Basel City, Aargau) capital gains made with cryptocurrencies are not subject to taxation for individuals (for legal entities yes, but loss can be deducted.)
SALOMÉ BOUZAS ROMERO
MUTUAL FUND ANALYST & PORTFOLIO MANAGER
TRESSIS SV
Score prediction: SWITZERLAND 1 – SPAIN 2
INVESTMENT INSIGHT:
Euro2020 faces its last steps and we will soon know who the new king of Europe is.
Some teams have had easier ways than others to earn their right to be in the quarterfinals, and that generally means they are more rested that their opponents.
Today I want to highlight the importance that, as in the case of the road to the quarterfinals, owning a world class infrastructure network is for attracting foreign companies that can export their goods using the multiple transport options that exist.
Just to put you in context, Spain is ranked seventh in terms of infrastructures in the The Global Competitiveness Report, prepared by the World Economic Forum.
Specifically, we have the best road connectivity in the world, exhibiting the largest network of highways and motorways in the EU (more than 17,000 kilometers), while achieving the ninth position in terms of efficiency of train services.
In particular, we are well known globally for our high-speed railroad network (known as AVE), sitting between the top three in the world and having already exported it to places like Saudi Arabia.
In addition, being a country mostly surrounded by water pushed us to developed a maritime platform with 46 ports, in which we move more than 560 million tons of goods, placing us in second place in Europe regarding movement od containers in ports.
If our football team reflects the excellence of our infrastructures network, I have no doubt that we are going to take the trophy back to Spain.
