OffChain Luxembourg

Ever wondered what would happen if we completely reinvented how money works? Not just tweaks to the system, but a fundamental transformation that puts power back in your hands? Thanks to the MiCA regulation, OffChain Luxembourg opens doors to possibilities you never imagined. 📅 Tuesday, January 14, 2025 | 7:00 PM 📍 Indie's - 6 Bd Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 2450 Ville-Haute Luxembourg ✨ Your Evening of Discovery Includes: 🪄Live Blockchain Magic: Experience the future of payments happening right before your eyes. No more talking about potential; see real transactions, real impact, real change. 🌟 Connect with Visionaries: Immerse yourself in Luxembourg's most dynamic blockchain community. Every conversation could be the beginning of your next big opportunity. 🚀 "Open Money" Revolution: Discover how blockchain is lowering barriers and creating a financial system that works for everyone. This is more than just another tech talk. This is your invitation to be part of a movement that's reshaping the future of finance. Whether you're blockchain-curious or a seasoned enthusiast, you'll walk away inspired and empowered. The future of money is calling. Will you answer? Don't miss your chance to be part of this transformative evening! 🥂

When crypto gets hacked, who actually has the power? Binance's reported $6.3B breach raises a paradox: Centralisation creates vulnerabilities. But it can also help freeze stolen funds. And proof of reserves ≠ proof of security. Can we have decentralisation AND recoverability? Full post on our Linkedln page!

Let's talk about OffChain again. 🧡 Before Innopay, the pilots and the partnerships, there was a simple idea: Bring curious people together to learn, challenge ideas and build something meaningful. Over the coming weeks, we're going back to our roots. Because community comes first. 🧡 Check on our Linkedln profile for the full story!

About Last Night. 🧡 Six people, one table, great conversations. That's Letz OffChain! Lots of Innopay discussions too. Follow @innopay for updates. Interesting news might be coming! Thanks to everyone at Indie’s! Where should we meet next Tuesday? 🍻

Blockchain is borderless. Stablecoin access? Not so much. 🇪🇺 ESMA says EU crypto providers shouldn't serve non-MiCA-compliant stablecoins. More consumer protection? Absolutely. But are we also creating new gatekeepers? Is MiCA enabling adoption or limiting choice? Full article on our Linkedln!

One drink turns into three hours. That's Letz OffChain. 🧡 Different people, great conversations, plenty of laughs. And always room for one more. 📍 Indie’s, Luxembourg 📅 Tomorrow, 27 Oct · 19:00 🍻 10% off when ordering via Innopay! See you at the table!

About Last Night. 🧡 Sometimes, six people around a table are all you need for a great evening. Yesterday's Letz Offchain at Brasserie Millewee was one of those nights. A small, intimate gathering of members and familiar faces. No agenda, no presentations, just good company and conversations going absolutely everywhere. And we had a familiar face back at the table! Nacho joined us again after the summer, bringing his usual collection of great stories, interesting ideas and, apparently, some newly acquired taxi-driving skills. 🚕😂 (We'll leave that story for another evening.) As for the conversations? We went from cybersecurity and hacks to the cost of living in different countries. Turns out Luxembourg isn't exactly the global standard for affordability. Who knew? 😂 Apparently, there are still places where you can live ridiculously cheaply. Unfortunately, you can't pay with Innopay there yet. We're working on it. 😎 Some football in the background, a little PSG–Barcelona, and somehow we eventually ended up discussing movies, series and everything worth watching. By the end of the night, we had collected quite a few new perspectives, some good laughs and a dangerously long list of things to binge-watch. And honestly, that's one of our favourite things about Letz Offchain. You come for a drink and a conversation. You leave having learned something unexpected, heard a story you won't forget, and probably added another five things to your watchlist. Nothing complicated. Just people, ideas and good company. Thanks to everyone who joined us! See you next Tuesday. There's always another chair at the table. 🧡

Tuesday again. And tonight, we're taking over Brasserie Millewee. 🧡 Another Letz Offchain, another evening of good food, drinks and conversations that somehow always end up going in directions nobody expected. Bitcoin, blockchain, stablecoins, what's happening in Luxembourg, what the markets are doing... or whatever else comes up around the table. And tonight there's something else worth trying. Innopay is now fully live at Brasserie Millewee! You can browse the menu, order and pay directly from your table using a QR code. No need to wait for the bill or reach for a card terminal. If you've been curious about how blockchain payments work in practice, this is a pretty good opportunity to find out. And if you need a hand getting started, we'll be there. As usual, no presentations, no agenda, no need to know anything about crypto beforehand. Just people from different backgrounds getting together to exchange ideas, have a laugh and enjoy the evening. - Brasserie Millewee, Luxembourg - Tuesday, 20 October - From 19:00 Bring your curiosity. Bring a friend. See you tonight, fam.🧡

How does a 240-year-old financial incumbent defend itself against disruption? Embrace the vocabulary. Keep the gatekeeping. BNY’s announcement of a “tokenized” US Treasury transaction with Citadel Securities deserves a little unfashionable scrutiny. Here is the advertised breakthrough: Citadel bought a Treasury through BNY on Tradeweb. A tokenized representation was recorded on BNY’s private digital ledger, settled within minutes, and then used for overnight repo financing—with BNY providing the cash. BNY calls this a triparty repo workflow. A small question: where is the third party? The announcement names no separate cash lender. Perhaps different BNY entities or business lines performed different roles. Perhaps “triparty” describes the platform used. Either way, the release leaves readers guessing. A bigger question: what exactly did the token contribute? If a bank controls the securities records and the relevant cash accounts, it can update both through ordinary book entries. A blockchain is not a prerequisite for that. Nor is T+1 a law of computing that only a token can overcome. Moving from trade execution to financing within minutes may be a useful operational improvement. But comparing that workflow with the broader market’s standard settlement cycle does not establish that tokenization caused the improvement. Show us what required the token. Can the holder move it outside BNY’s infrastructure? Transfer it to another custodian? Use it directly with an independent financing counterparty? Does it reduce dependence on BNY—or simply give that dependence a fashionable new interface? These questions matter because blockchain’s disruptive promise included reducing reliance on the institutions that control the records, access and movement of assets—and charge us for the privilege. For those incumbents, there is an attractive alternative to resisting the technology: absorb it, confine it to their own infrastructure, and market the result as a revolution. There is a familiar playbook here. In the 1990s, Microsoft embraced Java, then added Windows-specific extensions that undermined its promise of portability. “Embrace, extend, extinguish”: welcome the technology while neutralising the threat it poses to your business. Reading BNY’s announcement, we wonder whether tokenization is getting the same treatment. Embrace the token. Keep it inside your own infrastructure. Preserve the customer’s dependence on you. “Write once, run anywhere” meets “tokenize once, stay here (and keep paying us).” Our concern is the zombification of tokenization: the terminology lives on while the disruptive substance is hollowed out. Private infrastructure can deliver useful improvements, but an internal technology upgrade needs to demonstrate its benefits; the word “token” cannot do that work by itself. Until then, we see a familiar business model wearing a blockchain costume. The gatekeeper has acquired a token. What has the customer acquired?

The world keeps getting crazier. Luckily, we still have Tuesdays. 🧡 Tonight, Letz OffChain is back at Indie’s! And as usual, there's no shortage of things to talk about. Is the crypto market preparing its next big move? Is AI moving faster than we can keep up with? Are stablecoins quietly reshaping the financial system? And what the hell is going on in the world? Plenty of questions. Probably even more opinions. Good thing we've got a table, some drinks and an entire evening to figure it out! No presentations. No formalities. No need to be an expert. Just good food, interesting people, familiar faces, newcomers and conversations that can go absolutely anywhere. And of course, Innopay will be there too! Pay with Innopay and enjoy 10% off your bill! Never tried it? Come over and we'll show you how it works. Blockchain adoption tastes even better with a discount. 📍 Indie's 📅 Tonight, Tuesday 13 October 🕖 From 19:00 💸 10% discount with Innopay Come for a drink, stay for dinner, meet some interesting people and maybe leave with a completely different perspective on something. The table is open. The conversations are waiting. See you tonight, fam! 🧡

Bitcoin. AI. Stablecoins. Tokenised markets. And probably a few terrible predictions about what happens next. 🧡 Sounds like a Tuesday. Tomorrow, 6 October, Letz OffChain is back at Brasserie Millewee from 19:00. And there is definitely no shortage of things to talk about. Bitcoin has been climbing again. Traditional finance keeps moving onchain. Stablecoins are becoming actual payment infrastructure. AI agents are starting to transact. And somewhere in between all of that, we're still trying to figure out what the financial system of the next decade is actually going to look like. Bull market back? Maybe. AI changing everything? Probably. Will everyone around the table agree on any of it? Absolutely not! And that's kind of the point. Letz OffChain isn't a conference. There are no slides, no speakers and no requirement to know what a blockchain actually does before sitting down. It's simply a table where people from completely different backgrounds meet, eat, drink, challenge ideas and try to understand what the hell is happening around us. And because we're at Millewee, Innopay will of course be running too. The full setup is there: browse the menu, order and pay directly through Innopay. If you've never tried it, tomorrow is a pretty good excuse. We spend enough time talking about bringing blockchain into everyday life. Sometimes it's nice to just order dinner with it. 📍 Brasserie Millewee 📅 Tuesday, 6 October 🕖 From 19:00 Crypto veteran, AI nerd, entrepreneur, finance person, complete newcomer or simply curious about where all of this is going: grab a chair. Come for a drink. Stay for dinner. Leave with at least one new idea, and probably three new arguments. See you tomorrow, fam. 🧡

Iran uses Tether to evade sanctions. The obvious conclusion? Crypto needs to behave more like banks. Except there's a problem. The banks aren't exactly stopping it either. 🧡 A new investigation from Democratic staff of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examined 846 crypto wallets sanctioned or targeted because of links to Iran and its regional proxies. According to the report, 84% transacted exclusively or predominantly in USDT. Investigators argue that Tether has become an important component of Iran's shadow banking infrastructure, including networks connected to sanctioned entities and regional proxies. That's serious. And it shouldn't be dismissed with the usual: "But criminals use banks too." They do. But that doesn't make illicit stablecoin activity irrelevant. It does, however, raise a much more uncomfortable question. Only days before this report, an investigation found that a Kremlin-backed network managed to move $6.9 billion through the international banking system, using front companies, forged documents and accounts touching major global banks. Banks operating under decades of AML rules, KYC requirements, sanctions screening and enormous compliance departments. So perhaps we're asking the wrong question. Instead of: “How do we make crypto comply like banks?” Maybe we should also ask: “How effective is the compliance model we're trying to copy?” Because AML isn't free. Banks spend enormous resources identifying customers, monitoring transactions, screening sanctions and producing compliance documentation. Those controls can stop illicit activity. They can also make illicit finance more difficult and expensive. But clearly, they don't eliminate it. And compliance has another consequence we don't discuss enough: the higher the fixed cost of participating in financial markets, the easier it becomes for large incumbents to absorb it and the harder it becomes for smaller competitors to enter. Regulation designed to keep bad actors out can therefore also become a moat around the institutions already inside. That doesn't mean abolishing AML. And it certainly doesn't mean ignoring Iran's use of USDT. It means we should stop pretending the choice is between: "regulated banks = clean" and "crypto = illicit". The evidence is considerably messier. Bad actors don't have ideological loyalty to blockchains or banks. They use whatever financial infrastructure works. The interesting question for the next generation of financial regulation isn't whether we should fight illicit finance. Obviously we should. It's whether we can design systems that fight it more effectively, more proportionately and at a lower cost than the system we inherited. Because if we're rebuilding financial infrastructure anyway... perhaps we shouldn't automatically rebuild every inefficiency with it. 🧡

Summer is technically over. The terrace apparently didn't get the memo. 🧡 Tomorrow, 29 September, we're back at Indie's for another Letz OffChain. And with Luxembourg still giving us decent weather, we're planning to make the most of the terrace while we still can. Is the crypto bull run waking up again? What the hell is happening with AI? What are markets doing? And what will we all be arguing about six months from now? Who knows. But that's exactly why we have a table. Come have a drink, grab some food and spend the evening exchanging ideas with people from completely different backgrounds. And because we're at Indie's, Innopay will of course be there too. Already using it? You know the drill. Never tried it? Come say hi and we'll get you started and you'll get 10% off when paying with Innopay! - Indie's - Tuesday, 29 September - From 19:00 You don't need to be a crypto expert. Just bring some curiosity and join the conversation. See you tomorrow, fam. 🧡

Crypto-assets are born as data. Securities are born as law. That distinction matters when we talk about tokenised securities. A cryptocurrency or token is natively a digital object. A security, by contrast, is fundamentally a legal object: a share, bond or other set of enforceable rights. Tokenisation tries to bring the advantages of blockchain, automation, near-instant transfer and settlement, broader access and potentially lower costs, into the world of securities. But “tokenised security” can mean very different things: 1️⃣ A token representing a conventional security The actual security remains recorded at a traditional Central Securities Depository (CSD). The blockchain token represents an entitlement to it. The CSD remains the ultimate source of truth. This can bring benefits, but also creates a new reconciliation problem between the blockchain and the traditional securities register. 2️⃣ A digitally native security on a CSD-operated DLT There is no conventional security underneath: the security itself is issued on the ledger. But the infrastructure remains controlled by a CSD. The technology changes; the institutional architecture largely survives. 3️⃣ A genuinely DLT-native securities market This is the more radical model: the ledger itself becomes the market infrastructure, potentially combining trading and settlement and allowing securities to move in near real time. Remarkably, the EU's DLT Pilot Regime - Regulation (EU) 2022/858 - explicitly recognises this possibility. And this is where technology meets market structure. If DLT can combine functions today performed by trading venues, settlement systems and CSDs, incumbent infrastructures such as Euroclear and Clearstream are not neutral observers of that transformation. Their legitimate concerns about stability, investor protection and market integrity coexist with an obvious structural conflict of interest: some of the efficiencies DLT promises come precisely from eliminating or radically changing functions on which the existing post-trade architecture is built. The DLT Pilot has so far produced very limited activity. ESMA acknowledged its limited uptake, and the European Commission has now proposed substantially expanding and relaxing the regime. Perhaps the lesson is simple: You cannot seriously test disruptive market infrastructure if the experiment is designed primarily around preserving the architecture it is supposed to challenge. 🧡 #Tokenisation #DLT #Blockchain #CapitalMarkets #Securities #FinancialInnovation #DigitalAssets #OffChainLuxembourg

This evening, we're taking the orange table back to Brasserie Millewee. 🧡 Tuesday means Letz OffChain and this week we're heading back to one of the places where talking about crypto and actually using it can happen at the same table. Good food, a few drinks, familiar faces, new ones, and conversations that have a tendency to start with blockchain and somehow end up absolutely anywhere. And yes, Innopay will be there. Already using it? Pay with it. Never tried it? Even better. Come over, grab your phone and we'll show you how it works. It takes a few minutes, and then you can actually use it to pay at Brasserie Millewee. Because we can spend hours talking about adoption... or we can order dinner with it! 📍 Brasserie Millewee 📅 Tuesday, 22 September 🕖 From 19:00 No crypto knowledge required. No membership required. Just curiosity and an empty chair waiting for you. See you later, fam. 🧡

The CLARITY Act just failed to bring clarity to crypto. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate failed to advance one of the most important attempts yet to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets. The procedural vote ended 49–50, well short of the 60 votes required to move forward. But perhaps the most interesting part is why. Because this stopped being only a debate about crypto regulation. It became several political battles happening at the same time. One was about Trump. Democratic senators argued that the bill's ethics provisions did not go far enough to address potential conflicts surrounding public officials' crypto interests, particularly President Trump's own involvement in the industry. Another was about banks. Banks have been pushing for tighter restrictions on stablecoin rewards, warning that attractive yields could pull deposits away from traditional banks and affect lending. Crypto companies, unsurprisingly, see things differently. Then add developer protections, consumer safeguards, market structure, SEC vs CFTC jurisdiction... And suddenly a bill designed to answer: “How should America regulate crypto?” was also trying to answer: “How should politicians participate in crypto?” “How much should stablecoins be allowed to compete with banks?” “Who gets to regulate what?” That's the fascinating part. Sometimes legislation doesn't fail because people disagree about the technology. It fails because the technology starts touching too many existing interests at once. Banks. Regulators. Politicians. Fintechs. Crypto companies. Consumers. And perhaps that's also evidence of how far crypto has come. Ten years ago, politicians could mostly ignore it. Today, crypto policy intersects with banking competition, financial markets, political ethics and even the future architecture of money. The CLARITY Act may not have advanced. The questions it exposed aren't going anywhere. Because crypto can be regulated. It can be restricted. It can be argued about for another decade. But it can't really be uninvented. 🧡

Your Tuesday plans just got 10% cheaper. 🧡 Tomorrow, 15 September, Letz OffChain is back at Indie’s. And by now, you probably know how this works. No agenda. No presentations. No awkward networking badges. Just a table full of people talking about blockchain, AI, business, finance, startups, life... and inevitably something completely unrelated 20 minutes later. Drinks on the table, good food, better conversations, with the OffChain fam. And, of course, Innopay will be there too. Because Indie’s is one of our Innopay partners, everyone paying through Innopay gets 10% off their bill. Blockchain adoption is cool. Blockchain adoption that makes dinner 10% cheaper is cooler! Already using Innopay? Easy. Never tried it? Even better, come over and we'll show you how it works. 📍 Indie’s 📅 Tuesday, 15 September 🕖 From 19:00 Regular, newcomer, crypto veteran or someone who still has absolutely no idea what we do every Tuesday... there's a chair for you. See you tomorrow, fam. 🧡

Almost 4,000 BTC were drained from Liquid. And the craziest part? The vulnerability appears to have been introduced while fixing another vulnerability. 🧡 Here's what happened, without the cryptography PhD. Liquid allows transaction amounts to remain private. But if amounts are hidden, nodes still need to prove nobody is secretly creating money. That's what range proofs help prevent. Think: 1 BTC in → 1 BTC out versus... 1 BTC in → +4,000 BTC and −3,999 BTC out. Both mathematically balance. But the second one effectively creates thousands of BTC from nothing. Now comes the bug. Checking these proofs is expensive, so Liquid caches successful checks. Basically: "I've already checked this. It's valid." Attackers reportedly managed to create two different transactions with the same cache key. First, they submitted a legitimate proof. Liquid checked it and cached: VALID. Then they crafted an invalid transaction that produced the same cache key. Instead of checking again, vulnerable nodes essentially said: "Already checked this one." They hadn't. And suddenly, fake L-BTC could be created and exchanged for real BTC from Liquid's reserves. Brutal. But here's the important distinction: Bitcoin wasn't hacked. The infrastructure built around Bitcoin was. And this comes shortly after the Coldcard vulnerability we discussed recently. Different systems. Different bugs. Same reminder: The base protocol can be incredibly robust while wallets, sidechains, bridges, keys and everything built around it remain attack surfaces. And there's another lesson here. Some will respond: “See? Stop experimenting.” We'd argue almost the opposite. Bitcoin needs more brilliant developers building, competing, testing and trying to break assumptions. Because the answer to bad engineering isn't less engineering. It's better engineering. Security isn't the absence of innovation. It's what happens when innovation survives adversarial reality. 🧡

Tuesday again? You know what that means. 🧡 Tonight, the OffChain table is moving to Indie’s. No presentations. No dress code. No need to prepare your opinion on whether Bitcoin is going to $1M. Although someone will probably bring it up anyway. Just the usual Letz OffChain formula with drinks, good food, blockchain, AI, business, finance, life and completely unrelated conversations. Familiar faces, new faces and everything in between. And tonight, there's an extra reason to finally try Innopay if you haven't yet. Pay with Innopay at Indie’s and get 10% off your bill! Yes. We spent all this time talking about bringing blockchain into everyday life... Apparently everyday life includes making your dinner cheaper. 😎 Already using Innopay? You know the drill. Never tried it? Come over and we'll show you, it takes less time than deciding what to order. 📍 Indie’s 🕖 Tonight 08/09 from 19:00 Come for one drink. Stay for the family. End up discussing the future of money with someone you met 20 minutes ago. Basically, a normal Tuesday at Letz OffChain. 🧡 See you tonight!