A big welcome to the several hundred new subscribers who’ve joined us since Sunday: central bank officials, credit card execs and even someone from a national tax agency. No pressure!
Donald Trump came and went on Tuesday, touting the strength of the U.S. economy to chuckles from the audience. Greta Thunberg was in typical form, shaming the assembled world leaders and corporate bigwigs, ensuring climate change topped the agenda.
The “Greta effect” may be leading schoolchildren to increase their engagement on climate issues globally, but it may also have a side effect on cryptocurrencies.
“Proof-of-Work is still so toxic in an era of Greta Thunberg,” Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf told CoinDesk on Tuesday, referring to the energy-intensive consensus mechanism behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
In other news, the Facebook-birthed Libra Association lost another high-profile corporate member: Vodafone. CoinDesk was first to report the story.
With that, it’s time for Wednesday’s round of panels, side events and blockchain “solutions” to global problems. The World Economic Forum churns onward, stopping for no one.
Today’s Forecast: Same temps as Tuesday but a few more clouds. 🌤️
For Wednesday, a high of 39°F (3°C), low of 26°F (-3°C). Merely a 10 percent chance of rain or snow.
Don’t Miss…
WEF Sessions We’re Watching Wednesday:
10.30 - 11.15 The Future of Financial Markets
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Say no more, fam.
10.30 - 11.15 No Safe Asset?
Bitcoin may not get a mention here from Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff – but it should.
13.00 - 13.45 Humans Behind Machines
Another one with Glen Weyl, plus bonus points for AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Here are the three crypto-related events worth knowing about for Wednesday, Jan. 22:
The Global Blockchain Business Council is a partner of CoinDesk Confidential: Davos. Visit us at the GBBC Lounge at Hotel Europe on the Promenade.
1️⃣Crypto liquidity provider XBTO is rolling out the heavy artillery by bringing in economist Saifedean Ammous to proselytize to the Davos elite about bitcoin’s benefits. He’ll be keynoting an event starting at 9:30 CET at the Hub Culture Davos Pavilion (Promenade 93).
2️⃣The EmTech Investment Meeting continues Wednesday at the Belvedere from 15:00-17:00 CET. Panels will focus on the Financial Action Task Force’s big deal Travel Rule and other anti-money laundering efforts. CoinDesk’s Michael Casey will be giving the opening remarks, serving as a prelude of sorts to the Travel Rule conference CoinDesk is spinning up on March 10 in Washington, D.C.
3️⃣If you’re feeling adventurous, voyage to the distant InterContinental Hotel to catch the STO & Exchange Forum hosted by CV Labs. The gathering runs from 15:00-18:00 CET and features speakers from Cardano, Tezos, Lisk and more.
Scene Report
CoinDesk’s Leigh Cuen was at the Congress Centre on Tuesday for the official sessions on the WEF agenda, a first for a crypto news outlet. She found most Davos experts appearing to agree that blockchains are best for data collection rather than self-sovereign finance.
The tweets told the tale:
We caught up with Hyperledger’s Behlendorf at the GBBC lounge. The former CTO of the World Economic Forum itself is a grizzled vet of the Davos scene, first attending in 2006, before bitcoin was even a thing.
“It’s almost so mainstream,” Behlendorf said of blockchain’s showing at this year’s WEF Annual Meeting. Still, he said, the WEF’s approach remains tame.
“It tends to still stay away from the crypto side,” he said, adding that Libra and CBDCs have forced WEF conference programmers to at least consider cryptocurrency.
“WEF is very focused on prosaic applications of blockchain technology,” Behlendorf said, likening its approach to China’s blockchain-first strategy.
Related Viewing
Monday night we hosted a big party and everybody came to hang out. We met a bunch of people doing interesting things. Here are a few of ‘em:
Grace Wong, founder of Australian crypto-rewards app Liven – She tells CoinDesk the app has 600,000 users who get LVN tokens back for dining-out purchases. Liven even got the notoriously crypto-wary Apple App Store to feature the app (after nabbing an Apple Pay integration as well).
William MacAskill, Oxford academic – We chatted with the author of Doing Good Better about the curious overlap between crypto folks and the trendy, stats-heavy approach to being a philanthropist. “They’re data-driven and open to new ideas,” he told CoinDesk of effective altruism’s growing appeal in the industry. MacAskill said he also advises BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo, who spoke on the subject at a Davos side event.
David Shrier, Oxford and MIT futurist – The author of Basic Blockchain told us the book is meant to get your average exec up to speed on why blockchain matters. The tome has him speaking at three side-events this year – hardly enough to challenge the top of our Thought Leaderboard.
At the CoinDesk party, Leigh Cuen interviewed former Monero lead maintainer Riccardo "Fluffypony” Spagni. The privacy-coin advocate shared his views on central banks getting into the digital currency business:
Seen (and Heard) on the Promenade 👀
Vignettes from the day’s scrum.
Calibra chief David Marcus enjoyed a midday stroll with comms lead Christina Smedley. We heard it was his only free 30 minutes for the day. Popular guy!
Did we catch CoinDesk’s Michael J. Casey telling Microsoft chief Satya Nadella a bad blockchain joke? The two were seen chatting at the Tata Consultancy Services lounge.
PwC crypto honcho Henri Arslanian observed the following:
New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac was seen just ambling around. Maybe his Uber canceled on him...
Alethea AI CEO Arif Khan was interviewed by CBS News about a timely new deepfake portraying world leaders apologizing for their multitudinous failures on climate action.
Thought Leaderboard
We’re handing out gongs to the thought-iest crypto thought leaders at Davos this year. We’ll be tracking the usual suspects’ panel appearances, briefings and media spots. Email me at zack@coindesk.com if you’ve noticed someone’s overwhelming brilliance…
After much data-crunching and agenda-scrutinizing, we now know who’s leading the Thought Leaderboard. Taking into account the St. Moritz crypto conference, the standings are as follows:
🥇Chris ”Crypto Dad” Giancarlo with four appearances
🥈PwC’s global crypto lead Henri Arslanian has three...
🥈...Putting him even with our own Michael J. Casey
🏅Circle’s Jeremy Allaire gets a special shout-out for swinging two official WEF appearances Tuesday.
With three days to go, it’s still a tight race for all you thought leaders.
Who Won Davos Crypto Twitter?
It’s a good thing Brad got a front-row seat to share this with his Twitter legions.
Media Diet
Trading algorithms won’t be able to keep up with new climate-change investment goals because of a paucity of data, the FT’s Gillian Tett learns from UBS execs.
The world’s fund managers (and assorted whales at Davos) face a conundrum: There’s nowhere to invest their money, Revolut chairman Martin Gilbert tells CNBC’s David Reid. We might have a suggestion, Martin…
For Big Tech it’s all about trust – and antitrust. Information Age’s Tom Patterson takes us on a tour through the infosec events at Davos, including meeting a “Chief Trust Officer.” Meanwhile the FT’s Rana Faroohar tells us why unicorns and their backers are in regulators’ sights this year.
Join some 200 others in the CoinDesk Confidential: Davos group on Telegram for the latest updates.
Office of the Day
We got a breath of fresh air after working from the many consulting-firm lounges at the Belvedere Hotel this morning. If you can get in, don’t miss the smoothies at KPMG.
📍Pin-Drop
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Michael Casey will be speaking at the ultra-alliterative Future of Finance and Fintech Forum, which will run from 10:00-12:00 CET at Promenade 40. The event is hosted by the Fudan Fanhai Fintech Research Center at Shanghai’s Fudan University.
Joanne Po will be moderating a digital assets panel at the GBBC from 13:00-14:00 CET with MIT’s Neha Narula, Diginex CEO Richard Byworth, Michael Coletta of the London Stock Exchange and more. The GBBC has opened up access to CoinDesk-moderated sessions, so feel free to swing by and drop our name at the door.
Aaron Stanley will be taking a brief respite from the Davos crypto circuit to celebrate his Scandinavian roots at the popular Swedish Lunch. The sixth edition of the event will be hosted at the Schatzalp Hotel – located on a beautiful plateau 300 meters above Davos proper. It will host a guest of honor from Sweden’s royal court: Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland.
Contact Us
Here in the mountains with a hot tip that simply must be shared? Did climate change wreck your trading algorithm this year, but have a request that would assuage your FOMO?
Get in touch: zack@coindesk.com
Till tomorrow,
– Zack “Really Needed That Midday Nap” Seward