DLT based on Swiss quality standards

Under the umbrella of digitalswitzerland The approach of federated and collaborative innovation will be followed in order to create an open repository of the technical and legal information, definitions and standards that will ensure a secure, interoperable and reliable Swiss Distributed Ledger Technology-infrastructure. The development of a new DLT ecosystem based on Swiss quality standards requires the cooperation of companies, organisations and experts, as well as interaction with political decision-makers and regulators, the association emphasises. In this way, citizens would be supported in exploiting the potential of DLT technology by enabling the independent storage of digital information, values and rights, as well as their uncomplicated, legally secure and efficient transfer. To achieve this, the companies have MME and Swisscom brought together industry leaders and experts from academia and business to establish coherence between the technical and legal domains and jointly promote ongoing DLT initiatives. 

Johannes Höhener (Swisscom), co-initiator of 4T-DLT: "The world-leading Swiss blockchain ecosystem should be further strengthened with the outlined approach. This takes into account the recent amendments to the Federal Law on the Adaptation of Federal Law to Developments in Distributed Electronic Register Technology (DLT Law Amendments). Together, they create a solid foundation for continued growth."

Luka Müller-Studer (MME), co-initiator of 4T-DLT: "The successful application of a new technology requires a common understanding of its fundamentals. The 4T DLT white paper helps the user, the consultant, the authorities to orient themselves and to find solutions together."

4 elements of trust

The whitepaper is divided into four parts, each of which addresses one of the key pillars of a trusted DLT infrastructure to support and drive adoption of DLT technology:

• Configuration: This chapter describes how to ensure the authenticity, integrity, confidentiality and availability of digital asset information. The focus is on the synchronization of on- and off-chain information, i.e. legally relevant data with technical information. The full potential of the new technology can only be exploited by securely and efficiently linking off-chain documents, such as the registration agreement, with the corresponding DLT information. 
• Consensus: This element specifies the requirements for (inter)operability between protocols. Ten principles have been defined to which all DLT interfaces should adhere in order to achieve effective, secure and error-free communication.
• Custody: This part addresses the question of how digital assets can be stored reliably and easily within the framework of self-custody and third-party custody solutions. It provides an overview of the regulation of custody solutions under current Swiss law and shows how the integrity of the financial market and investor protection can be granted.
• Transaction: The final chapter sets out how the legally secure transfer of digital assets "peer-to-peer" between users of a digital infrastructure can be ensured simply and without intermediaries. In particular, it focuses on the new legal concept surrounding the right to register value, which has found its way into the Code of Obligations as part of the amendments to the DLT Act. It will be examined which contractual foundations must be created as a minimum content in order to enable a legally valid transfer of dematerialised, digitised rights.

With the publication of this white paper, the authors aim to help Switzerland continue to establish and develop itself as one of the world's leading, innovative and sustainable locations for fintech companies and DLT initiatives, as digitalswitzerland writes in its media release. 

The publication of the white paper also heralds the next phase of the 4T DLT initiative. At the moment, the initiators are working on sharpening the next goals - they are looking forward to an expansion of the collaboration circle, it is announced. In a regularly held forum, innovation, experience values and improvement approaches in industry and academia are to be discussed openly across all sectors.

Source: digitalswitzerland

What is DLT?

Distributed ledger technology is the basic technology for all types of blockchain applications. DLT works like a digital ledger: The partners involved in a transaction store the data of the transactions in a blockchain. This means that they can be viewed and verified in real time by all partners while maintaining confidentiality. The data cannot be changed retroactively. The mutual control and the immutability of the data create verifiability and trust. Because all partners access the same data in real time, blockchains simplify collaboration and enable greater automation of administrative processes.

Source : www.post.ch