The Thunderstorm event places Lugano at the center of financial innovation on Bitcoin: featuring Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, and Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream.
In Lugano, Thunderstorm has just concluded, the event organized by Fulgur Ventures, which aimed to bridge the gap between traditional finance and Bitcoin.
The central theme of the event was the financialization of Bitcoin, with a particular focus on the tokenization of assets. In simple terms, it’s about turning Bitcoin into a platform where real-world assets—like shares in a company, bonds, or even real estate—can be tokenized, traded, and settled faster.
Opening the event was Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, who kicked off the program with an introduction on the importance of Bitcoin.
This was not just an event for industry insiders. Following the speeches, representatives from Crédit Agricole, Accenture, and family offices were also present.
During the panel “Bitcoin as the best digital asset,” Ardoino outlined a critical scenario regarding the global economy, emphasizing how Bitcoin could represent a lifeline, stating:
“Everything we built until today only works in the best case scenario. If there’s a catastrophe those tools won’t work. And if you look at all the macroeconomics indicators, things will go south. This is one of the reasons Bitcoin is great. Everything will fail apart from Bitcoin.”
Following this, during the panel “Innovating finance: Bitcoin’s role in new financial instruments,” Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, illustrated the potential of Liquid Network, the Bitcoin sidechain developed by his company to improve the scalability and privacy of transactions. Speaking about the future prospects of the platform, Back stated:
“Liquid Network is specialized in issuing and transferring securities. You can see pretty exciting examples of that. It’s an interesting time for Bitcoin related technologies, for Bitcoin derivatives products. Our goal is to expand our technologies offer.”
Regarding the recent $210 million investment led by Fulgur Ventures, Back commented:
“A very effective use of funds from us is to help making Bitcoin related technologies like Lightning or Liquid more efficient.”
Advancing a price forecast for Bitcoin for the next year, Back stated:
“The price target of Bitcoin for the end of 2025 is $500,000.”
