Oct 25 – Frankfurt – SIBOS

Reporting back from one of the most important financial gatherings of the year in Germany, here are our insights from this year’s SIBOS in Frankfurt.

- The market has swapped, no hoodies, just suits. Many new faces with just 1-2 years of blockchain experience are floating the discussion and explaining their +100 Mio tokenized funds or freshly minted institutional stablecoin.

- First time we heard the term "MiCA utility token".

- David DUROUCHOUX (Société Générale FORGE) stressed: “Stablecoins are private money for private banks”, raising big questions about the balance between innovation and public trust.

- Martin Bruncko (Schumann Financial) underlined: “We need programmable money from banks for retail, not Bitcoin and co. Current Metamask-style wallets are horrible for users: 12-word memorization, irreversible transactions, constant hack risks.”

These voices highlight that banks are willing to adopt, but need UX friendly solutions vs. the still-clunky crypto UX.

The open question: will banks set the standard with stablecoins, while building their own stables or shall they adopt existing tech and focus on global scale?