World leaders warmed to Blockchain at Davos this year, despite crypto winter
Hi guys. I’m in Davos, Switzerland, through the rest of this week covering the World Economic Forum’s annual conference and the crypto panels held alongside the main event. Feel free to contact us on Telegram if you are here.
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The narrative
The World Economic Forum is holding its final annual meeting in snow-covered Davos, Switzerland, back in its normal time slot after a few years of coronavirus pandemic chaos. And just like last year, the 2023 conference has its share of crypto companies and mini-conferences.
Why it matters
Crypto being here is really no surprise. What is surprising is just how the industry seems to be almost doubling its presence, holding as many panels and conferences as it did last year. While there are signs of a bear market – there aren’t nearly as many listings or crypto houses – those that are here are here in force.
Breaks it down
Crypto’s presence is less conspicuous in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2023 than it was in May 2022. That’s understandable. May 2022 was before the dark times. Before the bankruptcies and collapses and the discovery that maybe all companies were just lending the same pile of crypto to each other might have been a bad thing.
Despite all that, the industry representatives are here in force. Several companies and groups hold their own mini-conferences alongside the main WEF sessions. It’s at that point where, even though I’m here with my colleagues Sandali Handagama and Jack Schickler, there aren’t nearly enough of us to actually cover the various panels.
The groups here—Global Blockchain Business Consortium, Casper Labs, Circle, Filecoin Foundation, 1inch—also vary their offerings. United Nations representatives, Commodity Futures Trading Commission officials and lawmakers from various countries are all here for the crypto conferences.
It’s a far cry from your usual crypto leaders and startup founders (not that they aren’t there too, just that it makes a bit of a difference).
I’ve already written a lot about how crypto has been represented at Davos in this CoinDesk article here, so I’ll just point you to that article.
However, to end today’s edition, I will just throw down some thoughts and comments, which did not make it into the main article: This is apparently the first year that a winter lake at Davos did not freeze. It’s also surprisingly warm here so far, compared to how it should feel. This is not a crypto comment, but given we live on this planet it seems worth noting.
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There are some seriously interesting panels happening. What has really surprised me is the fact that there are so many government officials and international agencies speaking at crypto-specific events.
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Around 2,700 world leaders and their staffs will be present, according to a press release from the WEF.
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I have participated in a number of discussions so far. FTX has obviously come up several times, but panels are apparently trying to move past that to address other aspects of the industry at the moment.
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I moderated a panel for 1 inch where we came close to the conclusion that the cryptocurrency industry is driving the increasing dollarization of the world. I want to go into more depth on this at a later date.
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You can read Sandali and Jack’s conclusion to day two here.
One out of three
This is how many members of Congress received money from an FTX leader in the form of direct donations. CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton, Cheyenne Ligon and Elizabeth Napolitano identified 196 sitting senators and representatives who received donations, and reached out to all 196. Just over 50 responded and explained what they did with the funds.
The donations may be subject to repayment, even if the legislators who received the funds chose to donate them to charity or elsewhere.
This is an excellent survey that is well worth your time.
Biden’s rule
Changing of the guard
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If you have thoughts or questions about what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me on Twitter @nikhileshde.
You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.
See you next week!
