Digital Money: BIS Projects, Tokenisation, Crypto-Assets and Digital Assets — conclusion

Conclusion

Digital money is the domain in which Basel's role as an international financial centre is most directly at stake. The BIS Innovation Hub has made the city the laboratory of tokenised central bank money, from Helvetia and Jura to Mariana and Agorá, while the BIS has offered a coherent vision of the future monetary system in the unified ledger and has set out its reservations about stablecoins. Switzerland has built a legal foundation in the DLT Act and is adapting its framework to stablecoins and crypto institutions. The four scenarios developed in this chapter, the unified ledger, stablecoin dollarisation, fragmented rails and incremental tokenisation, show how differently this foundation could be used by 2035, depending on the policies of the United States and the European Union, on geopolitics and on the pace of adoption. In each of them, the legal questions of finality, insolvency remoteness, conflict of laws, anti-money laundering and tax reporting will determine whether clients can trust the new forms of money and assets.

Basel's position will be strongest if the vision developed in its own institutions prevails. It will be weakest if geopolitical fragmentation undermines the cooperation on which the BIS rests. The same geopolitical forces shape the economic base of the city, the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industry, whose global supply chains and markets are exposed to trade conflicts and investment restrictions. Chapter II turns to these forces and develops scenarios for the presence of the life sciences industry in Basel in 2035.

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Rechtsanwalt/Attorney-at-Law

I am a Swiss attorney-at-law and also admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong and in England & Wales, with almost 25 years of experience.

Together with my multilingual team, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and French native speakers, I advise companies and their owners from around the world on the full range of banking, corporate, commercial and tax law matters in Switzerland, including international tax planning, fiduciary services, and legal family office services including immigration & relocation or real estate investments. My practice has a particular focus on clients from growth and frontier markets in Greater China, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and I equally advise clients from Europe and North America. Through an affiliated Swiss trust company, we also take care of the incorporation and ongoing administration of their companies and other structures, including accounting, tax returns and corporate secretarial services, and I serve as a professional director where required. With the support of a network of first-class cooperation partners, I also implement solutions worldwide.

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Digital Money: BIS Projects, Tokenisation, Crypto-Assets and Digital Assets — conclusion

Conclusion

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