Distributed in about twenty workshops, and organized by Lugano studio Finlantern by Riccardo Esposito, LFF 2022 has animated a parallel debate between fundamental finance, based on the examination of data, and digital finance, the crypto-economy, designed by and for internet users but followed not only by them.
Both of these methods today deal with health and war complications, and discount an inflation whose effects are only appearing at the beginning.
This is what emerges, for example, from a verification of the fundamentals proposed in the speech by the Austrian Gernot Blümel, former Federal Minister of Finance and now General Manager of the Viennese Superfund Group, one of the world market leaders in assets managed by Artificial Intelligence-AI.
The budgetary imbalances among the 27 in the Eurozone hinder a coordinated and therefore effective recovery.
Starting with inflation itself, which started from a rate of 1% in September 2019 and exploded at the end of October to a median value of 11%, well above the 2% expected and not understood by the European Central Bank-ECB.
An examination of the inflation rate on a national basis also shows an ascending curve which starts from 6.2% in France, continues with 9.4% and 10.9% in Italy and Germany, and reaches 24.1% in Latvia.
In addition to regional differences, another front of instability is the ratio between public debt and industrial capacity: the median value of Euroland stands at 94.2% and therefore, at first glance, the total state liabilities of the 27 seem to be equivalent to the overall profitability of the productive sector.
But on a national basis the differences remain. On the contrary: they start from a rate of 16.7% in Estonia, rise to 21.3% and 25.4% in Bulgaria and Luxembourg, 108.3% in Belgium, 113.1% in France, 116.1% in Spain, continue with 150.2% in Italy, and they reach a disturbing 182.1% of Greece, whose country system produces half of what is necessary to guarantee the internal debt.
Until now, observed Blümel, the interventions of the European Central Bank-ECB have subsidized the deficits of the EU countries.
But the current rate hike leads to criticizing the behavior of the ECB, given that the objective of loans from the Community treasury, especially from the beneficiary countries, must not be understood as a guarantee or even a substitute for the money that one is unable to produce autonomously.
To complicate this scenario is added the collapse of the exchange rate between the euro and the US dollar, the official currency of world purchases of raw materials. It is therefore confirmed that the industries of Euroland are importing inflation from monetary devaluation which will be transferred to public price lists in the coming months: all we have to do is wait.
Let's proceed in order, and now let's ask ourselves if crypto-finance represents an alternative to today's market involution.
Although stock prices move downwards, “upon closer inspection we note that the best known of the cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, has had a performance aligned with liquidity”, instead comment the experts of 21Shares one of the most authoritative global players in digital finance. In particular, continues 21Shares, the addition of 5% of crypto to a traditional portfolio would increase its profitability and limit the risk profile, because the factors that determine the value of decentralized currencies, the artificial ones, are not comparable with the unknowns that agitate the day's news and stock market prices. Therefore, warn the experts of 21Shares, “In such uncertain times where predictions about the future are becoming increasingly difficult, on the investment front cryptocurrencies as part of a diversified portfolio could play an important role in generating secure long-term returns”.
But digital finance is also going through an uncertain period: last November the bankruptcy of FTX, one of the main crypto exchange platforms, started to feed negative forecasts on the decentralized currency market and on the many, perhaps too many, artificial currencies currently free and deregulated traffic.
However, points out Massimo Siano, head of activities for southern Europe of 21Shares, the value of digital currencies finds justification not only in the prices of the day but, in a broader perspective, “by blockchain technology” which allows its emissions and exchanges: “within ten years the blockchain will change our lives, and this will be what will support the crypto market”.
And we are at the point: cryptocurrencies today are of interest not only to economic theory, but also to banking practice: “traditional finance is converting to new digital procedures”indeed, he recalled Massimo Butti, responsible for product development and procedures at SDX the world's leading platform for accounting for financial transactions.
In particular, continued Butti, it is thanks to the blockchain that today "it is possible to offer not only alternative products, but also to satisfy the needs of a new audience: this is the evolution that is transforming traditional finance into digital finance".
It is a change that is revolutionizing the preferences of contemporary society, and that precisely with digital technology replies to the uncertainties related to the reliability of personal and above all economic interests.
For example, he recalled that Luca Ambrosini, chief operating officer and co-founder of Pepper, a popular platform that also allows gamers to earn cryptocurrencies, an evolution of those who were once video game users.
In simple words, the CEO of Pepper underlined, the company is tokenizing itself, it is creating digital tokens, tokens, which thanks to the blockchain not only identify and keep assets, our economic activities, but also allow their exchange and computerized transfer.
Currently, Ambrosini confirms, it is possible “create a token, advertise it, sell it and collect the value in just a few minutes thanks to a digital platform”.
Let's face it: everything can be tokenized.
This is the lawyer's opinion Lars schlichting, one of the leading legal fintech experts, recalling that Switzerland is one of the few countries in the world to have specific legislation to regulate IT activities. Through tokens, for example, it is possible to issue the shares of a commercial company and transfer ownership without the need to resort, for example, to a notary.
These are just a few clues, the most recent and certainly not the last, of a series of innovations that in the coming years will allow the blockchain to overhaul the social values of that new village, global because it is now totally decentralized, where we will all find ourselves citizens .
