Ric Edelman: CNBC’s Josh Brown on Crypto ETFs

Ric Edelman: It's Friday, July 21. Coming up on the show today, CNBC's downtown Josh Brown. 

The city of Lugano, Switzerland, has issued a bond. Well, nothing new about that. Governments issue bonds all the time to raise money, and investors like to buy government bonds because of the interest that they earn. And these bonds are considered very safe governments, after all—don't go out of business.

What makes this bond from Lugano, Switzerland, unusual, worthy of conversation? This bond was issued on the blockchain. Selling blockchain bonds is, in fact, becoming more and more common.

The first was issued by the World Bank five years ago. It allocated, transferred and managed the bond on a blockchain using distributed ledger technology. The European Investment Bank issued its first blockchain bond back in 2021, and did another one this past November.

In October of last year, Israel sold a bond using blockchain technology. More recently, in February, Hong Kong did it. In March, Brazil's central bank sold tokenized bonds for the Brazilian federal government. All of these so far have been countries selling bonds on blockchain.

Lugano is now the first city to do it. It was a $108 million offering. They began sales at 9 a.m. and they sold out in 90 minutes. Big savings in time and cost. These improved efficiencies are leading people to refer to these as green bonds because of the improvement for the environment. That's what the Hong Kong Monetary Authority calls its blockchain bonds: green bonds.

This is a big deal. Switzerland, in fact, has long been known for its financial sophistication and that famous Swiss efficiency. Their goal, they say, is to stay at the forefront of technology.

Now Japan and the United Kingdom have been talking to the Swiss about how they did it so they can do it, too. And people are still skeptical at the technological benefits of blockchain and digital asset technology. If you haven't invested in any of this yet, what are you waiting for?

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