I met Guido Buehler at the Top Marques 2025 luxury fair, in Montecarlo, where he was attending one of the events of zondacrypto, the exchange operating across multiple markets, where he serves a Board Member since October 2023. Mr. Buehler is a veteran of the banking and finance industry, who turned entrepreneur and consultant, and is now present in several industries where he tries to do something he loves: opening boundaries and democratizing access, according to principles of inclusivity and ease of use that are very dear to the blockchain practitioners of the first hour. He is, indeed, one of the godfathers of the Swiss Crypto Valley.
But let’s step back for a second. Mr. Buehler has always loved technology and activities associated with speed, like trading. He started his career at UBS, as a Junior Trader, and then spent there eleven years, finishing his gig as a Managing Director for the Assets Servicing business.
“I used brand new IT programs, at that time, like Lotus, to automatically understand the position of the bank, or the profitability of its trading portfolio. And many other tech stacks, applied for example to credit balance. I then moved into derivatives, especially linked to the foreign exchange market. And there was new tech there, too. I loved how tech could disrupt legacy processes and ways of working.”
Mr. Buehler decided to leave UBS to create his own family office, together with a partner, with investments, again, centered on technology. One passion came to him in the early days, around 2017, called blockchain, and Switzerland was the right terroir for this nascent tech, with disruptive ambitions.
“I got involved into blockchain and crypto, and I tried to be the intellectual father of the first crypto bank of the country, called Seba, now Amina. What I liked in the tech was the overlap, or better the fit, between finance and blockchain. I raised 100 million CHF in three months, and set-up the bank within eleven months, including a full banking license application. It was a sprint, very start-up like. Similarly to the ‘internet of value’, or Web 3, what blockchain does is to disintermediate the financial industry, getting closer to what people need, and engaging them into a movement where everyone has the vested interest to grow the value of the network”.
Mr. Buehler is more of a technology architect, rather than a purist, or a philosopher of the tech. For the likes of zondacrypto, he helps with strategy and positioning. He has, indeed, a very distinct point of view on what Web 3 is and should do. “Blockchain is able to optimize the financial industry, and its entire infrastructure, with clear benefits for retail clients, namely the end consumers. Most boards of legacy banks consider crypto as yet another asset class, while its real value is in the interconnectivity, which changes everything,” says Buehler.
He is also a member of the Swiss Blockchain Federation, who penned, in May, a Manifesto, meant to grow the blockchain ecosystem in Switzerland, building bridges between business, regulation and politics. “Innovation drives progress. With blockchain you use the capital markets just as a measurement, so that you go directly from service to trade, with no middleman. It’s the fractionalization, the decentralization that matters. For example, take the tokenization of a house, and its spread co-ownership result. It levels the playing field and democratizes the investment, opening the door to big and small players at the same time,” says Buehler. The feeling of the Manifesto is that Switzerland is losing grounds to other regions, and it needs to reclaim the leadership it once had. The decentralized government of Switzerland seems to be the natural sweet spot for the tech revolution of the blockchain universe. The path that initiated years ago needs to continue, seems to be the intention of the document, signed also by the Crypto Valley Association and the Bitcoin Association Switzerland.
Mr. Buehler is working on zondacrypto, boosting its strategic capital and visibility. He is also into startups like Swica, which fosters micro-savings’ programs for people that just reached disposable income, and create a sort of savings plan, based on blockchain, for example. Swica is active now in Sri Lanka, meaning that a financial revolution is able to touch the margin of the global financial empire. Or a real estate and development concern called Lake Pavilion, which merges minimalistic design, Italian touch and fitness, creating beautiful and holistic living and working areas, in partnership with Molteni and Enea.
His wish for blockchain? “We need to go from speculation to adoption. The infrastructure players, in primis, need to step up the game. The temptation for money cannot obfuscate everything else. The tech is too powerful to be used for shortcuts,” closes Buehler.
Exactly like we heard from Yat Siu, the soul of Animoca Brands, the blockchain ecosystem needs new rules, which do boost innovation, but also virtuous players, who respect what blockchain does at best, namely creating shared value, with inclusivity, efficiency and impact. We can do it; this seems to be the message of one of our crypto godfathers.
Author: Francesco Pagano