Today the big guns arrive.
As the World Economic Forum kicks off in earnest Tuesday, most eyes will be focused on the 11:30 CET special address from U.S. President Donald Trump, which you can watch here.
There’s plenty else to watch, with blockchain folks featuring on the WEF agenda. See our highlights below.
Plus, expect notes in tomorrow’s dispatch from reporter Leigh Cuen, who has direct access to the WEF proceedings.
Today’s Forecast: Sunny and warmer. Bring the sunnies for all that albedo. 😎
For Tuesday, a high of 39°F (3°C), low of 26°F (-3°C). Chance of precipitation: 10 percent.
Don’t Miss…
WEF Sessions We’re Watching:
08.30 - 09.15 CET Shaping the Future of Financial and Monetary Systems
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) loom large. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire is on the panel representing stablecoins, like his firm’s USDC.
09.30 - 10.15 Shaping the Future of the Digital Economy
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman is the main draw here.
09.45 - 10.15 Redesigning Democracy in the Digital Age
Economist, “Radical Markets” author and influential ethereum thinker Glen Weyl is leading this talk on radical solutions to society’s problems.
13:30 - 14:00 From Token Assets to a Token Economy
WEF blockchain lead Sheila Warren is leading a talk with Circle’s Allaire and MIT Digital Currency Initiative Director Neha Narula about tokens, naturally.
16.00 - 16.45 China Economic Outlook
In crypto and beyond, 2020 is likely to be the year of China, with its digital yuan initiative and bustling exchange activity.
Here are the three crypto-related events worth knowing about for Tuesday, Jan. 21:
The Global Blockchain Business Council is a partner of CoinDesk Confidential: Davos. Visit us at the GBBC Lounge at Hotel Europe on the Promenade.
1️⃣The GBBC program kicks off at 13:00 CET with a power-packed session exploring the “money revolution.” The panel includes ex-CFTC chair Chris Giancarlo (currently leading our Thought Leaderboard), Accenture’s David Treat, Libra Association policy director Dante Disparte and former UK communications minister Ed Vaizey. The panel will be moderated by CoinDesk’s own Joanne Po.
2️⃣The Tradeshift Sanctuary is back for its fourth year and has a strong Tuesday program exploring the future of global trade and money. Tradeshift will also have a 13:00 CET session featuring historian Niall Ferguson, Marissa Drew of Credit Suisse, Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng and CoinDesk’s own (are you seeing a pattern here?) Michael Casey.
3️⃣The EmTech Investment Club is hosting a program exploring the evolution of finance at the Hard Rock Hotel starting at 18:00 CET. The event includes a speaker lineup from lots of brand-name crypto firms including Huobi, Galaxy Digital, SIX Digital Exchange, the Cardano Foundation and more. This event will be emceed by (you guessed it!) CoinDesk Managing Editor Zack Seward.
Scene Report
(Photo by Orbs Head of Partnerships Danny Brown Wolf, used with permission)
Monday featured a slate of blockchain-related side events that ended up generating a few noteworthy developments.
Early in the day, ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin announced a well-timed white paper: “a large-scale, private, permissioned, Ethereum-based network,” he wrote, is the ideal platform on which central banks should create their digital currencies.
CBDCs are all the rage here in Davos so it makes sense the ethereum co-founder would tailor his pitch accordingly. The second-largest blockchain by market capitalization offers a simple means for creating and destroying tokens, Lubin said, as well as built-in compliance tools for controlling who gets to use the network.
“We believe that Ethereum is the best-suited blockchain network for the kind of maximally secure, global-scale, interoperable settlement platforms that CBDCs require,” Lubin wrote in the white paper.
That said, the paper concedes there are still significant hurdles to handling the volumes that a CBDC would require: “While no blockchain has the technology to support the required transaction throughput levels today, Ethereum is well placed to be able to do so in the near future.”
Later in the day, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman Chris Giancarlo spoke about his newly formed Digital Dollar Foundation.
“Crypto Dad” spoke at length about the joint effort with Accenture to “lead the way on thinking about” digitizing the U.S. dollar. Should the government choose to undertake such a project, Giancarlo said he wants his group to be the go-to source for key frameworks.
“[The digital dollar] would allow people to simply email money without an intermediary,” he told the crowd at LATOKEN’s Blockchain Economic Forum (BEF), before closing on a geopolitical note.
“I don’t see the development of [China’s] digital yuan as an existential threat to the strength of the dollar,” Giancarlo said.
Related Viewing
On the sidelines of the BEF – which was held in the events hall of a local retirement home (so it goes in Davos in January) – former CFTC chair Giancarlo spoke with CoinDesk’s Michael J. Casey about the future of competing digital currencies.
And speaking of events... the kickoff party for CoinDesk Confidential was a hit, if we may say so ourselves.
Here’s a quick pic, but more details from the party TK, which, for the non-journalists out there, is short for “to come.”
(Photo by Oxford and MIT futurist David Shrier, used with permission)
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…
Davos hasn’t even started yet, but counting the St. Moritz crypto event, Chris Giancarlo and David Johnston are tied with two speaking engagements each. The competition for 🥇 is fierce.
Who Won Davos Crypto Twitter?
Large-scale cod fishing instead of skiing, anyone?
Media Diet
We could be at peak peak, reports Enda Curran for Bloomberg’s Davos Diary, citing research that suggests everything from global trade to inequality could be maxed out.
The captains of industry at Davos are all worried about one thing this year, writes Michael J. Coren for Quartz’s Davos 2020 coverage.
You think Crypto Davos is lit? The pot industry is turning out for Davos this year, reports Kristine Owram for Bloomberg News. Sam Riches has the niche take for cannabis trade mag The Growth Op.
CoinDesk Confidential on Telegram is still going strong for the latest on-the-ground updates from Crypto Davos.
Office of the Day
The Davos overnight desk (the floating heads of, left to right, Joanne Po, Zack Seward and Aaron Stanely) was stationed at the GBBC Lounge prior to (and during!) the CoinDesk party. They say crypto never sleeps.
📍Pin-Drop
Find CoinDesk today at…
CoinDesk’s Michael Casey and Aaron Stanley are hosting a panel on “synthetic media” – such as deepfakes – at the Cannabis House (Promenade 64) at 15:00 CET. Deeeep, man.
At 16:00 CET, Joanne Po will be moderating a GBBC panel on tokenization featuring Mason Borda of Tokensoft, Guido Bühler of SEBA Bank, Pascal Gauthier of Ledger and more.
Later in the day, you can find us at the EmTech event, and a few of us are sneaking away to the Effective Giving dinner hosted by BitMEX billionaire Ben Delo.
Contact Us
Here in the mountains with a hot tip that simply must be shared? Forgot to book your private helicopter this year and have a request that would assuage your FOMO?
Get in touch: zack@coindesk.com
Till tomorrow,
– Zack “Sledding Is the New Thing” Seward