LUXEMBOURG
BLOCKCHAIN WEEK
26 - 30 APRIL 2021
BREAKING NEWS
European Investment Bank (EIB) issues its first ever digital bond on a
public blockchain
Press Release
Find out more by checking the press release
Program
A main chain of program and a multiplicity of side events!
Pre-Conference Pitch- 4:45pm by Nomadic Labs,
Pre-Conference Pitch- 1:45pm by Algorand, Barry Finkelstein
5:20pm Fireside chat Public & private sector collaboration for a bright future: on trust and identity moderated by Alexia Martinel (Nomadic Labs); Panelists: Anne Cécile Davron (Popcorn), Alain Broustail (Sword Group), Daniel Du Seuil (Public / European Blockchain Partnership), Johanes Ebert (Gravity), Attila Vágvölgyi (IOP ), Wayne Chang (Spruce Systems)
Main Event Speakers
We are bringing you the experts to discuss Blockchain Technology
They keep joining so stay tuned as this is being updated on a regular basis.
Xavier Bettel
Prime Minister of Luxembourg
Inauguration
Pierre Gramegna
Minister of Finance
Luxembourg
Finance
Dr Abdullah Albeyatti
Co-Founder & CEO Medicalchain & MyClinic
Health
Denis Avrilionis. PhD
Founder & CEO
Compellio
Technology
Rushank Bardolia
Managing Director
GreenEarth Agro
SDGs & Climate
Steven Becker
President & COO
Maker Foundation
Finance
Dr. Inma Borrella
Research Scientist
MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics
Supply chain & logistics
Arthur Breitman
Early Architect
Tezos
Inauguration
Alain Broustail
CEO - Blockchain EZ
Head of Blockchain Activities - Sword France
Public Sector
Alex Cahana
Board member
AdaLabs Africa
UN/CEFACT Expert on Blockchain and Healthcare
Health
Thomas Campione
Director
Blockchain & Crypto-assets Leader
PwC Luxembourg
Digital Assets
Nino Chaganava
Co-founder
Filedgr
Supply chain & logistics
Daniel Coheur
Co-founder & CCO
Tokeny Solutions
Digital Assets
Patrick Corker
Vice President Finance, Treasurer and Head of Corporate Development
Circle
Finance
Managing Editor
Cointelegraph
SDGs & Climate
Anne-Cédile Davron
CEO & Co-founder
Davron Digital
Public Sector
Alex de Vries
Founder
Digiconomist
SDGs & Climate
Nena Dokuzov
Head of Project group for New Economy and Blockchain
Technology
Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (Slovenia)
Public Sector
Founder & Managing Director
Trace Labs (OriginTrail)
Supply chain & logistics
Daniël Du Seuil
Convenor of the European Self Sovereign Identity Framework
European Blockchain Partnership
Public Sector
Johannes Ebert
CEO & Co-founder
Gravity.Earth
Public Sector
Jón Helgi Egilsson
Co-Founder & Chair
Monerium
Finance
Lucas Fernandez
Head of Innovation
CHAMP Cargosystems
Inauguration
Michèle Finck
Senior Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
Visiting Professor, LUISS University
Health
Katherine A. Foster
Climate Finance and Strategy Director
Open Earth Foundation
SDGs & Climate
Adrian Gonzalez-Sanchez
Head of AI Customer Success
Peritus.ai
R&D
Thierry Grandjean
Research Engineeer
LIST
R&D
Jed Grant
Board Member, LëtzBlock
CEO
KYC3.com
Digital Assets
Scott Hendry
Senior Special Director of Financial Technology in the Banking and Payments Department
Bank of Canada
Finance
Mark Henkel
MD Zukonft
Supply chain & logistics
Paola Heudebert
Legal Operations Officer
Archipels
Digital Assets
Frédéric Hubin
Blockchain Integration Expert
Neofacto
Public Sector
Gene Hoffman
Director, COO & President
Chia Network
SDGs & Climate
Biba Homsy
Attorney at Law
Homsy Legal
Finance/Digital Assets
Carlo Houblie
Commercial Director
Luxembourg Stock Exchange
SDGs & Climate
Adnan Imeri
Researcher
LIST
R&D
Michael Jackson
Strategic Advisor
Inauguration
Douglas Johnson-Poensgen
Co-founder & CEO
Circulor
Supply chain & logistics
Candace Kelly
General Counsel
Stellar Development Foundation
Finance
Djamel Khadraoui
LIST
R&D
Jake Langenkamp
Managing Director
IdenX
Digital Assets
Jean Lasar
Project Lead
Survcoin
Digital Assets
Eugen Luft
Enterprise Architect and Solution Design Lead
IBM Cognitive Process-Reengineering Practice
Health/Technology
Nicolas Mackel
CEO
Luxembourg for Finance
Inauguration
Benny Mantin
Director
Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL) - Uni.lu
Supply chain & logistics
Alexia Martinel
Strategy & Adoption (BeLux)
Nomadic Labs
Public Sector
Silvio Micali
Founder
Algorand
Inauguration
Todd Miller
VP, US Business Development and Partnerships
ChromaWay
Public Sector
Carolina Moulin
Ph.D. visiting researcher
Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL) - Uni.lu
Supply chain & logistics
Thomas Moser
Alternate Member of the Governing Board
Swiss National Bank
Finance
Sean Murphy
Founder
ImpactScope
SDGs & Climate
Joseph Pallant
Founder & Executive Director
Blockchain for Climate
SDGs & Climate
Drew Persson
President
Beefchain
Logistics
Anca Petre
Health tech influencer & Founder
23 Consulting
Health
Nathaniel Rand
Director of Business Development
Manetu, Inc
Digital Assets
Armin Ranjbaryan
CTO
Gravity Partners
Health
Frank Ricotta
CEO
BurstIQ
Health
Alexander Rieger
Research and development specialist
SnT - Uni.lu
Technology
Carla Rosen Vacher
Outreach Communication Officer
Luxembourg Centre of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL) - Uni.lu
Supply chain & logistics
Elizabeth Rossiello
CEO & Founder
AZA
Finance
Tamara Roth
Researcher FINATRAX Research Group
SnT - Uni.lu
Technology
Uwe Roth
Senior Researcher
LIST
R&D
Nimit Sawhney
Co-founder & CEO
Voatz
Public Sector
Jean-Louis Schiltz
Senior Partner
Schiltz & Schiltz S.A.
Technology
Joseph Seibert
Managing Group Director, Senior Vice President of Digital Asset Banking
Signature Bank
Finance
Tobias Seidl
Co-founder, Product Strategy & Regulatory Lead
STOKR
Digital Assets
Alexey Shadrin
CEO
Evercity
Finance
Radu State
Head of the research group SEDAN
SnT - Uni.lu
Technology
Qiang Tang
Senior Researcher
LIST
R&D
Frank Teichmann
Senior business & Strategy consultant
IBM
Technology
Pierre Thissen
Head of Market Infrastructures and Payments Systems Policy
Banque Centrale du Luxembourg
Finance
Alexander Tkachenko
Founder and CEO
VNX
Technology
Attila Vágvölgyi
Technical Lead
IOP
Public Sector
Dr Quy Vo-Reinhard
Chief Data Officer and Co-Founder
HIT Foundation
Health
Frédéric Vonner
Privacy Leader, Partner,
PwC Luxembourg
Digital Assets
Patrick Weber
Attaché
Ministry for Digitalisation
Public Sector
Evgeniya Weibel-Zimmer
Business Manager
Neofacto
Public Sector
Linda Weigl
Researcher FINATRAX Research Group
SnT - Uni.lu
Technology
Simon Zadek
Chair
Finance for Biodiversity (F4B)
SDGs & Climate
Nasir Zubairi
CEO
The LHoFT Foundation
Finance
Side Event Speakers
Elio Barbera
Managing Director
Caffè Barbera 1870
Boston Blockchain Association Side Event
Thibault Chessé
Blockchain Adoption & Strategy
Nomadic Labs
Nomadic Labs Side Event
Barry Finkelstein
Head Of Business Development N. America
Algorand
Algorand Pre-Conference
Theo Goodman
NFT expert
Lëtzblock Side Event
Pietro Grassano
Business Solutions Director Europe
Algorand
Algorand Side Event
Max Hillebrand
Free Software Entrepreneur
TowardsLiberty.com
Lëtzblock Side Event
Henri Lieutaud
Blockchain Lead Dev
Wakam
Nomadic Labs Side Event
Michel Mauny
CEO
Nomadic Labs
Nomadic Labs Pre-Conference
Claudio Parrinello
CEO
PlanetWatch
Boston Blockchain Association Side Event
Vivien Sayve
Chief Revenue Officer
Exaion
Nomadic Labs Side Event
Wim Stalmans
Founding Partner & Managing Director
The Blockchain Academy®
The Blockchain Academy®
Side Event
Mike Wise
Chair of the Boston Blockchain Association Managing Consultant for Bleumi, Inc.,
Boston Blockchain Association Side Event
Why Blockchain matters?
2.6%
Expected boost in GDP for Luxembourg by 2030
6600
Net creation of jobs in Luxembourg by 2030 (expected)
US$ 1.76 trillion
Total impact on global GDP expected by 2030
Blockchain Technology holds the promise of a decentralised, reliable, and unmediated economy. Limiting its potential to securing virtual currency exchanges would be too simplistic. With this in mind, Nomadic Labs aims at anchoring the Tezos technology within the French, Belgian and Luxembourgian economies. Tezos is a public decentralized blockchain with european roots. Nomadic Labs, a French R&D company, is one of the largest contributors to the Tezos protocol. Oana Ladret Piciorus, Managing Director at Nomadic Labs, shares her vision of the Blockchain and its unsuspected perspectives.
How would you define Tezos? What are the values that characterize this blockchain?
Tezos is smart money, redefining what it means to hold and exchange value in a digitally connected world. A self-upgradable blockchain with a proven track record, Tezos seamlessly adopts tomorrow's innovations without network disruptions today. The characteristics that best define the Tezos protocol are:
- Reliability
Tezos offers a new level of security thanks to the use of formal verification. It uses, amongst others, the OCaml programming language, which allows for the formal verification of tools and smart contracts and thus greatly reduces the risks of bugs.
- Evolutivity
Tezos is the world’s first self-amending blockchain: all stakeholders may participate in network upgrades by evaluating, proposing, or approving amendments.
- Eco-responsibility
Thanks to a protocol based on Proof of Stake, the Tezos blockchain is less energy-intensive than previous generations of blockchain, an essential feature in the age of energy transition.
How does Nomadic Labs contribute to the development of Tezos? What is your mission?
As a member of the Tezos ecosystem, we collaborate daily with academic institutions and R&D labs located around the world, participating in the ecosystem and contributing to the development and evolution of the Tezos protocol. In concrete terms, we work on promoting the adoption of Tezos to "end users" and providing them with technical support.
What is recent news of Nomadic Labs and its Adoption Department?
Since last summer, we have been working within the consortium led by Société Générale to conduct experiments on a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
In addition, and thanks to our technical support, we are pleased to see institutional players join the active governance of the Tezos chain. Indeed, over the last five months, we have seen EDF, via its subsidiary Exaion, Sword France, SmartNode, The Blockchain Group, Wakam and Ubisoft, become "corporate bakers'' on the Tezos blockchain. More recently, the Lugh Company, with the support of Nomadic Labs, has announced the creation of the first French digital asset pegged to the Euro. The deployment of this digital asset, issued on Tezos, allows users to make instant transactions, hedge against the unpredictability of volatile cryptocurrencies and reduce transaction costs.
Last but not least, we have recently joined Infrachain, a Luxembourg based non-profit organization for operational blockchain projects with the will of actively participating in the development of the blockchain technology in Luxembourg and, of course, of facilitating and driving the use of the Tezos blockchain, an ideal long-term solution for high-value applications.
Crypto has come out of the woods, it’s here to stay. In this article, Thomas Campione, Director, Blockchain & Crypto Leader, PwC Luxembourg, explains why the time for crypto-assets management has arrived. With crypto-assets increasingly considered a full-fledged asset class, CryptoAM products are easing accessibility and improving transactional efficiency while product sophistication adds an attractive layer of diversification with investors guided by growing valuable professional support.
For many years, the world of crypto-assets has essentially been a retail space where individuals invested on their own, bearing the costs of information asymmetry and transaction fees of (un)regulated exchanges, while managing the burden of self-custody using cold storage for the more advanced.
That time has gone.
With a crypto-assets market cap of $2Tn (at time of writing), an institutional tsunami where most of the biggest financial institutions have now made their crypto plans quite clear and a historical branding issue which is increasingly less of an issue, a new audience with new needs has entered the scene and the retail approach is not an option for them.
Whether it is through the multiplication of investment structures, the development of institutional grade crypto-asset servicing solutions or blockchain-based market infrastructures, CryptoAM is coming and is poised for significant growth.
Beyond the many recent market developments, the natural question is, why even think about CryptoAM? The short answer may leave some sceptical, so let’s elaborate:
Over the years we slowly but certainly moved from a situation where crypto-assets were considered as thin air – even Ponzi for some – to a situation where they are more and more considered a full-fledged asset class – displaying high returns combined with high volatility, and more interestingly a quite low correlation with other asset classes, which rationalises their role from a portfolio management perspective.
In addition, there is a widely accepted argument that some crypto-assets provide inflation hedge, a powerful feature in these times of exceptional loss due to monetary policy across the globe.
For the average investor, crypto-assets can be quite difficult to grasp, if not completely esoteric. Furthermore, the way one can gain access adds even more complexity at first sight. The multiple trading places available and their onboarding processes, concepts such as wallets and private keys management or irreversibility of transactions do not make crypto-asset investments super intuitive. This naturally creates barriers to entry. In that context, CryptoAM products are key to easing accessibility by removing some, or all, of this inherent complexity.
Closely linked with accessibility is the way crypto-assets investment products are brought to investors. In the short term we will see crypto-funds shares available in their traditional shape, complemented by a tokenised version of these shares. The latter is a first step forward, an intermediary phase that provides a good avenue for experimenting and getting comfortable with the technology and the new concepts involved. Looking beyond, and for the industry to reap the full benefits of the underlying blockchain technology, native security tokens will be issued, held and transferred over a blockchain-based infrastructure.
This, combined with stablecoins or CBDC, shall significantly improve the performance of delivery vs payment, allow for a fully automated update of the shareholders register and underlying corporate actions, remove the need for reconciliation, and significantly enhance reporting accuracy and efficiency through automated data feed from onchain transactions. Efficiency will be greatly improved accordingly.
Whereas the average retail investor will go long on a given scope of crypto-assets, institutional investors vary greatly in terms of profile and investment objectives. They will seek active and passive investment vehicles, exposure to a basket of crypto-assets to meet diversification criteria, crypto-asset derivatives for risk management considerations and other more complex products. This explains the growing demand for diversity and therefore for crypto-assets based investment products.
In addition, while the crypto-asset landscape has been, and is still, dominated by ten assets or so, thousands of them are available for investment amongst numerous subsets presenting specific features and investment rationale. Accordingly, professional support has become quite valuable and in demand from an investment policy and more general investment advice standpoint.
Crypto-assets come with many specific features and an undeniable complexity but they open up a new world of opportunities for asset managers and investors (institutional or not). This asset class is expected to have a structural impact on traditional AM as product offering and market infrastructures develop. A critical space to watch in 2021 and beyond!
They believe in Blockchain and are impatient to give you more insights about the Technology and the use cases
Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Ecosystem Partner
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