Mont Pelerin
Source also found on https://www.mtpelerin.com
Introduction
Welcome to my second post series on Crypto Gems. My previous post was about the COSMOS SDK, Tendermint and on the IBC (Inter Blockchain Communications Protocol), Non Custodial Wallet options and Dex's. Feel free to check out at : Crypto Gems 01.
Discovering these coinages quite early, I decided to work on a series, revealing some important gems after a while. I shall work on future publications dropping some diamonds much sooner. Specially when comes to tech, innovation and idealism in crypto currency core values and tokenomics i'm keen to eye some peculiar anomalies.
In this post I'd like to introduce you to Mont Pelerin and the MT Pelerin, who are aspiring to build the bank of the future.
This is a very special post, where I shall introduce one of the best options when it comes to holding crypto and entering on chain or exiting back off chain. One where you have complete sovereignty over your assets but with straightforward options, connecting it to the real world. Although I'd like to clarify in the beginning that it requires a KYC process, the project is fully in line with my philosophy and I trust their vision and expertise. The team creating this is really taking web 3 to the next level, and so far they do much more than just keeping their promises and fulfilling their projected timeline. They make strategic partnerships and stand firm in their philosophies, believing in a world with freedom, liberty and censorship resistant solutions, essentially becoming a bank of the future while bridging the two worlds.
I urge all citizens of the hive and self sovereign holders of private keys to decentralised digital assets to stay alert as there is a lot of state forced interventionism and collectivism in violation of our individual liberties. This post is about the choice and to highlight our liberties and options.
Now is the time to inform our loved ones about how they can secure their future. This is becoming an ever more increasing necessity for new comers to the space.
Firstly I must emphasise on the importance of custody again.
Over the years and even more so recently, I met a lot of individuals who said they had invested in cryptocurrency via central exchanges. These custodial options although do not give you ownership of your decentralised digital assets or cryptocurrencies. It's usually the company behind the exchange that becomes the custodian. Owning your assets means having access to a Non-Custodial wallet, where you have a set of keys, your private key or a seed phrase often secured with an additional password. You really want to make this your preferred choice.
More Emphasis
Often, custodians who hold decentralised digital assets for you, are companies who are registered in some strange jurisdiction and usually save themselves by not having any liabilities in case of misconduct, breech of security or debacles when they get hacked.
Specially a lot of individuals I came across recently, new to decentralised digital assets don't really have custody.
You're fine if you use MetaMask. There is much more and i'm sure you already know.
Take for instance El Salvador. They use a layer 2 solution called Strike, founded by CEO Jack Mallers. The Bitcoin layer 2 solution is called lightning Network or LN. Although holding bitcoin is a great advantage for the government of El Slavador because of it's superior advantage to a legacy payment system as well as the USD reserve currency dependency, things aren't as they seem. The government of El Salvador basically opens a payment channel for it's citizens. Finally El Salvador becomes the custodian as a government and it's citizens exchange Bitcoins, but none of it's citizens are actually in custody of any Bitcoins. Essentially strike/The el Salvador government controls all private keys. The option of self sovereign custody in a non-custodial wallet becomes unremarked.
I'd like to mention that L2 solutions on ETH have long been a hot topic. Specially ZK rollups.
Now it gets even cheesier...
My regular line. Photo Manupulation. Original Image Source quote: "Not yow Keys, Nacho Cheese" - by 
When you go to your bank or ATM and withdraw cash, you basically ask the bank teller or the ATM machine to get it from your account/vault, take it out and give it to you. Essentially it's just electronically stored balance. They have custody, ownership and full access to your assets. Essentially they'd also have the power to freeze your account censor you or deny access to you as the owner?
Why would anyone care or even realise the difference or advantage from one over the other? Specially if they're accustomed to it and unaware that there is an alternative?
"If in fact you can’t crack that all, if the government can’t get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss Bank account in their pocket,” -Barack Obama
After all, we trust these institutions? For financial institutions to risk such disloyalty would be a breech of trust that would question their credibility?
What an irony of words?
I'm not a fan of fiscal politics but I think we never really tried Volkswirtschaft. -
Why is this important?
With crypto currency it is possible to hold or store your assets in a virtual vault, where you and only you have access to it. Holding your cryptocurrency in a custodial wallet defeats the purpose of investing in decentralised digital assets.
I'd also think that paying an exchange fee to centralised exchanges makes them a middle man and is redundant in the age of AMM's. How noble if other people can earn a percentage of this fee by providing liquidity at a decentralised exchanges?
It allows for sovereignty and freedom from institutions and government.
Not all projects are what they seem. There are gatekeepers and there's a lot of nepotism in private token sales that favour large stake holders that centralise assets and restrict them to elect groups that become nothing else but favoured VC's in an IPO looking for their ROI's. There are many crypto currency projects with tokenomics that have their incentives hidden in TX or gas fees essentially unlinked to any community treasury.
I am convinced such fake project will not prevail in the longrun, but they're out there to deceive the susceptible. I am just waiting for catallactics to play out.
It also brings us back to community, accentuating the importance of DAO's. I think that this is more a game of logic.
'When a few free range hens leave the fence, some hens behind the fence might notice it. They might start to question the limits of their confinement because they weren't just born to lay eggs for the farmer.' -
As the tides begin to turn
As the blockchain revolution evolves and thus decentralised economies prosper, the conventional finance industry progresses to adapt with powerful marketing schemes to persuade the masses into custodial solutions or to enforce the new standard upon their partner institutions. With these institutions conforming to the new ISO 20022 message format standards, some payment gateways and networks that aren't really blockchains will be favoured for a new international standard that might be the future of CBDC's. New users to the space can't distinguish between the two, because something like sovereignty and self custody in this form never existed prior to the current paradigm. It is clearly being downplayed and cloaked by a main stream narrative. Only very few question something so trivial, while the majority chooses to live in oblivion.
"You will own nothing and you will be happy" - Klaus Schwab
Who is Mont Pelerin ?
Three years after Brettonwoods and World War II in 1947, 36 Scholars, most of them economists along with some historians and philosophers were invited by Friedrich August von Hayek to meet in Mont Pelerin in the Kanton of Vaud, Switzerland.
With Mises in the room during it's inception, this think thank gave some hope for the dark ages that were yet to incur during the Keynesian paradigm until the Structural Adjustment facility by the IMF and the World Bank in 1971/1972, after the sudden removal of the gold standard. Fast forwarding to the OPEC crisis of the 1980, I will leave it open for you to decide on the various factors that leads to the financial crisis of 2008.
They had it figured out way back then and still do because they don't mix up politics and economics. They use science to create a concise understanding of how individuals act micro-economically, rather than to subject a collective to macro-economical conditions and desperately try to inefficiently adjust them. This makes many known statistical analysis highly unscientific when assessing supply and demand. Unfortunately even after the UN charter and right after World War II during that epoch and mind set, the world was too fatuous for such radically brilliant solutions.
'Just give it water, nurture it with good thought and let the plant grow. With lots of love it will find it's way to light' -
The MPS or Mont Pelerin Society is active today and consists of PhD's in economic science, political science, philosophy, history, internationally renowned intellectuals, philanthropists, intellectual entrepreneurs, policy makers, and policy analysts as well as remarkable individuals and advisors to some really amazing projects.
With Switzerland being a place for liberal thought and freedom to thrive, the MPS waited until it was finally going to be their time.
Who would have thought that these ideas would be adopted by DLT Networks in a future beyond the technocratic revolution sparked in their time.
Sidenote
Although libertarianism is very different from liberalism in it's classical sense as far as my understanding is concerned, it also differs greatly from Neo-liberalism. When it comes to scholars like Hayek and Mises, there are various differences, but their findings a treasury of stimulating ideas that sparked a revolution. We are all too familiar with Neo-liberalist movements and their arguments, because governments and policy makers do a poor job at alleviating the failures of markets to achieve prices. Specially in a redundant global US Dollar fiscal political system and the commercial bank money layer of the fiat currency system. Quantitive Easing and negative interest rates should not raise any concerns in a debt fueled economic model? Gresham’s law. Ironically Hayek's ‘The De-nationalization of Money’ would inspire the next iteration of money. Stablecoins? With Hayek to me being more of a Neo-Liberalist and Mises more of a libertarian, I agree more that the wealth of free market should flow where it pleases and lets the market attain it's prices without governmental intervention. -end of side note,
Mises proves that economic calculation was impossible under central planning, whereas Hayek considered central planners would perhaps one day arrive at achieving this, leaving the room open for a centralised system to continue. This made him viewed as a so called Neo-Liberalist by many, when in fact he might have been a libertarian at heart.
Insight
As you might be familiar with my blog, I have these intuitive spikes, where I get these precognitive bursts and flashes. Like images and ideas of the future. Unaware at the time they happen, they compel me to do something. Currently i'm trying to attune to this more.
I had always put libertarian thought and blockchain together. Being an early reader of Ayn Rand, into various kinds of philosophy that deals with reason. I still prefer to explore the limitations of ideas and write about them rather than to read and recite them. Specially the ability to think and act in the light of rationality and reason beyond the pattern of the known. Yet using known logic to cite possible abstractions can unmask new paths. I took various forms of western thought such as the Austro-libertarian into consideration at an early age, many years before bitcoin's inception came to public eye and often advert their significance in my blog posts.
This is why my approach to this space is rigged with epitomes.
In 2017 I had one of these insights, when I was re reading on Carl Menger's theory of money. At the time I just felt prone to verify my thoughts by taking reference. While thinking about direct and indirect exchange, I decided to search for articles on mises.org and looked for the website of the Mont Pelerin society. The search leads me to a peculiar project that was in the making at the time.
A blockchain bank?
This being a later screenshot, I went to research some advisors to mt pelerin as well as Founder Arnaud Solomon.
Source 2018
'I think you can have a certain kind of integrity that only a few might understand now. When that integrity can prevail in the future, the right kind of people will see it now?' -
Arnaud Solomon is a very special person and I can relate to him in many ways, even though we never really met in person. His first experiences as an entrepreneur was apparently at the age of 16. He studied communication systems engineering at the EPFL(École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). He later started a commodity and FX Trading career. Arnaud is solid when it comes to knowing how financial markets function and truly believes in the aspects of sovereign ownership of decentralised digital assets and is passionate when it comes to monetary matters and blockchain technology. He is also the co-founder of two companies called smex and ibani.
I wonder if this guy ever sleeps?
He also lived in India, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. I can mostly relate to him because i'm born Swiss and lived in India as well. The country with the largest inflow of remittances. There are even more things that I have in common with Arnaud, which I found out much later and also during the time of this writing.
MT Pelerin
The Bank of the Future.
Source
mtpelerin created a protocol called the Bridge protocol. At first sight it looks like a non-custodial crypto wallet with several Networks.
The truth is that Bridge is much more than that.
Switzerland is always trying to be at the heart of the financial services market. It's a place where the future becomes test ground and many cryptocurrency foundations are also registered here due to it's legislation, offering a space of liberty as this is what the country was founded upon. This is also due to the favourable legal framework of the Swiss foundation structure.
In Switzerland there are 3 companies working on the back end architecture for banking, building their core systems such as Avaloq, Temenos and Finnova. Mtpelerin created an interface that can link up with the software developed by Avaloq and Temenos. In other words, this allows these banks to move their balance sheets on to the blockchain at some stage. Guess who Mtpelerin is giving this power to first?
Us! The people.
There are many more advantages about the project I shall let you piece together by yourself.
With a WalletConnect option, you can connect Bridge to several decentralised marketplaces to buy NFT's or trade on various decentralised exchanges for decentralised digital assets.
The amount of networks added in the past months shows that Mtpelerin is active, ambitious and it gets me excited each time they have a new update.
After a while one realises that Mtpelerin is an aspiring team that's aiming to achieve something very different from your conventional financial institution. It becomes clear that they aim to evolve the banking business model instead of becoming just another bank. Specially whilst taking into consideration that sovereign custody and ownership of ones decentralised digital asset isn't just the only benchmark. It becomes apparent they are working way beyond this while keeping the core principles of liberty and freedom in mind.
Mtpelerin really has an edge by making their ideology a core principle of conduct. As a bank, they'd never use their clients savings to bet on financial markets. This also might soon make them the first full reserve bank in modern history. This will make them a bank on one side with their own blockchain protocol on the other. Plans to make the Bridge protocol open source were already mentioned. Specially during the current transition from redundant horse buggy and carriage banks, Bridge is a truly contemporary and an imperative solution during this paradigm shift.
In an age of smart contracts, where loans and mortgages can become tokenised assets on the blockchains, these can now be traded in liquid form. Connecting Bridge to DEX's one can take part in liquidity pools being an LP and leverage potential yield farming opportunities.
“All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.” — Ludwig Von Mises
MPS Shares
A New Decentralised Digital Asset Class
MtPelerin went a step further when creating their shares. They created a legal framework around having their shares become a decentralised digital asset at them same time as shares in their company.
Is the MPS a security token?
"Yes, it is a security token or simply said it is a share of the company Mt Pelerin Group SA. To be more specific, it is an asset token as defined in the guidelines published by FINMA, the Swiss financial market supervisory authority."Source
Legally MPS can't be viewed as a derivative or a collateral-backed token.
Within this framework your shares are protected by Swiss law.
With a very limited supply, i'd encourage anyone to get their shares through Bridge, using the xDai Network.
One of the most exciting things I read is about the fact that on the 16th of October 2018 Mtpelerin issued the first ever tokenised shares on the blockchain.
Click here for more
Token availablity and limited supply
"The main purpose of those 95% tokens is to conduct our second round of funding (not public). In this way, we commit to protect our crowd investors by raising funds through the holding company selling its own shares, not through the dilution of the circulating 500,000 MPS tokens."Source
Asset Tokenisation
Bringing securities on the blockchain legally are core advantages in the current financial revolution and are about to unwind for individuals and businesses with Mtpelerin.
This enables asset tokenisation on the bridge protocol, creating a compliance layer. Bridging this off chain and on chain is a crucial step in the evolution of crypto currencies. Using their smart contact to remain within this legal framework, it will give you the power to tokenise shares, bonds, real estate and funds.
Conclusions
In the world of today, we are supposed to trust a bank. Instead we are living in one where we have to bend to the restrictions of such institutions who give us no return for holding our hard earned value. To place so much faith in such institutions requires a good reason. It can't be just because it's the standard? To create a choice for peer to peer value exchange has been one of the merits of this paradigm shift.
To place such charge into institutions who have the power to censor us at any given time or deprive us of our ownership requires an enormous amount of trust. As this trust in an old and redundant system slowly dwindles, other more modern approaches and solutions for an ever changing industry begin to take shape and form.
I'd like to place my trust in a carefully segmented brainchild that's in line with my values as an alternative bridge to the real world.
When it comes to such concoctions, discovering them requires vision to see at what ends these are aimed at. These visions might have futuristic approaches and require breadth when it comes to liberty, freedom, trust and integrity peerless to the presently known standards. These approaches or tactics might not be comparable to institutions pursuing frivolous ambitions. The solutions might be aimed into a different more promethean direction. While others sell their innovation when it comes to decentralised digital assets disguised in the old custodian system, only the few penetrate ahead to define the unchartered spaces of future virtue.
I write this truly inspired by Mtpelerin and it's innovation as one of the leading technologies that truly fuel me for what lies ahead.
Best Wishes
Rane
Previous posts on decentralised finance:
The opinions stated in this publication points out to a solution that bridges the real world with a decentralised digital asset market. It is still my opinion to aim to create a decentralised, borderless, permissionless, free market beyond the reach of restrictive measures towards their fruition. One that onboards us directly into a free market and a new global economy of value.
Disclaimer:
This Content is for informational of entertainment purposes only. You should not construe any such information as legal, investment, financial advice. Nothing contained in this blog constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or as an offer by
All Content on this blog is information of a general nature and does not address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Nothing in the blog constitutes professional and/or financial advice, nor does any information on the blog constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters discussed or the law relating thereto. 
There are risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies, as they are highly volatile. Investing in stocks, bonds, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, and money market funds or cryptocurrencies involve risk of loss. Loss of principal is possible. Some high risk investments may use leverage, which will accentuate gains & losses. Cryptocurrency involves special risks, including a greater volatility and global, economic and digital asset risks due to it's scarcity and nature of it's value as direct and indirect exchange as well as differences in accounting methods. A cryptocurrency or anyone's past investment performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future investment performance.
Graffiti of vanishing
Dong Chang 东厂
aka Rane
'Gold was tangible and corrupted nations, resulting in genocide and robbed indigenous tribes of their resources. Paper Money was made from trees to make us forget how rich we were, surrounded by forests. Electronic money was the last time they could forge history and censor heretics, imposing their doctrines. Bitcoin is freedom in code to remind us of how scarce resources are and gave us financial liberty as a choice. Now we live in an expansive decentralised market of various cattalactic eco-systems, many of them allowing for the biggest wealth distribution in human history. If the oligarchs think they can prevail with violent coercion, dictatorial rule and autocracy, they evidently still don't understand whats happening.' -
Wallets:
Bitcoin
3Mvofn1VynU168DuYtMsDqnUMSw7nQ8JEQ
Ethereum, XDAI, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain...: 0x0398edefB9d18A6a7c9fe573bdeedB7797283Ae5
Tezos:
tz1iSv5gWfPqUqaGChhfX8Vj3yquj36fad2Y
Cosmos:
cosmos1l66z8kxxgvftw7cprz5dlzvzm4tyefhrvm3w03
Solana:
9AmMfaerhNgsz2maByDUGrPMKYQRVeYQXJvCe9n48Fti
Terra
terra1ccka0wd9v9eva3y5ljmjne2nc823rggdect0wp
Member of the Swiss Hive Community