TOPSHOT – A photograph shows a general view of the alpine resort of Davos, on the opening day of the … [+]
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There was quite a bit of gloom coming out the main congress center on the 50th anniversary of World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos with the 2023 theme, “Cooperation in a Fragmented World”. With double digital inflation, high energy and food costs, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, many global political and business leaders skipped this year’s WEF all together.
Those that attended were less likely to be grandstanding on the WEF congress stage but were seen in the back rooms of the Promenade listening to the many solutions to drive economic recovery, boost productivity, tackle the energy markets, and deliver better conditions for society in the 21st century.
The Davos Promenade, dominated by the blockchain community, was packed out and was pulsing with a quiet confident optimism.
Blockchain Dominates Davos Promenade
The tech presence on the Promenade has grown massively over the last decade and is now dominated by the global blockchain community. Circle, Filecoin Foundation at the Sanctuary with CNBC, Hedera, Copper at the Hard Rock Café, Blockchain Hub, Casper Labs and the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) with its sixth Blockchain Central at the iconic Hotel Europe, home of the Piano Bar, dominated the Promenade.
The tokenization of real world assets was a big theme with several of the largest buy side institutions now engaged in the tokenization of billions of dollars of financial assets and seeking to extend the tokenization of real assets beyond securities to real estate and commodities.
Tyrone Lobban, Head of Blockchain at JP Morgan spoke of the importance of Project Guardian, with their blockchain company Onyx collaborating with DBS, SBI, Oliver Wyman, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The real asset DeFi proof of concept pilot is a strong signal that tokenization of the real economy is about to take off. Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon hung out at the Equality Lounge speaking about his own experiences with men in the workplace and the job we all have to do to improve diversity, especially among leaders.
The Blockchain x Climate Leadership Network (BxC) was launched and will focus on carbon markets registries, standards and auditability, and policy development to drive interoperable Layer 1 blockchain solutions to bridge Web2 and Web3. The network includes Ripple, Solano, the Climate Collective, Eqo Networks and has the goal of connecting the many disparate projects working on blockchain climate solutions into a unified Web3 community.
Ute Klamert and Bernhard Kowatsch of The UN Food Programme spoke of the “food for crisis web3 initiative” which is focused on helping to feed the estimated 345 million acutely hungry people in the world enabled with blockchain infrastructure. The initiative is a moonshot mission of raising $1 billion and has had $100 pledged million since its launch earlier in the year.
Books, Tech Incumbents, And Davos Magic
Monty Metzger, the CEO of LCX, a Lichtenstein crypto exchange, launched his book, Blockchain Banking. The book is a great primer for entrepreneurs and executives on blockchain, digital assets, Web3, and the internet of value underlined by his quote, “blockchain is to the money what email was to the letter.” Metzger’s jovial launch event was attended by blockchain and tech pundit Don Tapscott and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, both advisors to LCX who spoke about the profound importance of this technology.
Accenture and Salesforce held down the heritage tech scene on the Promenade. Accenture Managing Director David Treat spoke on the digitization of identity, assets, and objects on the journey to Web3 was at the center of their OpenWallet Foundation collaboration. In a year where few global leaders showed up at WEF, Marc Benioff CEO at Salesforce, now focused on Web3, is the leader perennially holding court with rockstars and politicians, and hosted John Kerry and Al Gore.
The consensus on crypto regulations on the Promenade was muted to conservative at best – not much will get done in 2023. Expect more enforcement actions from the U.S. regulators, a deeper dive into European MiCA Level 2 drafting, and a quiet confidence that the U.K. will accelerate digital asset regulation through its historic Financial Services Bill. The jury is out with global regulators and DeFi and this is an area that will likely require greater industry development and collaboration.
There is always one Davos session outside of my own community that blows me away, and this year it was at EY’s Davos House. EY CEO Carmine Di Sibio hosted Pete Stavros, Co-Head of US Private Equity, KKR, and Moira Forbes, Forbes Media to discuss KKRs participation in the Ownership Works, a program that enables the employees of KKR companies to become owners, and focuses on building wealth for all employees in the company through aligning goals and compensation.
The performance data is outstanding beyond the finance story with greatly reduced quit rates and record high employee engagement rates. The human story of working folks in a garage door manufacturer in the U.S. getting their dividend payout after a stellar period of growth was life changing for many of the employees. Session delegates were witness to master story telling through Forbes’ rapport with the talented Stavros, accompanied by a video from the shop floor of payout day. It moved all of us in the room.
The Reports Of The death Of Crypto Are Greatly Exaggerated
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, owner of stablecoin USDC, teamed up with celebrated economist and author Niall Ferguson to talk about the impact on the market of FTX at the iconic Belvedere Hotel. While the crypto market shakeout, which has now claimed Digital Currency Group’s Genesis, drives a flight to quality, bitcoin is back above $20,000 and stablecoins set a record in total settlement volume in 2022, beating out most major credit card providers and demonstrating the importance of stablecoins in the development of Web3 and the future global payments system.
The global blockchain community, a community of companies of all shapes and sizes is quietly and confidently replacing the antiquated plumbing in financial markets, some of it more than 50 years old, and replacing it with new digital infrastructure that works and delivers real benefits, both economic and social.
Many blockchain solutions work today to a high degree of utility and do the job, there is more signal than noise. It is human factors, outmoded regulation, and the lack of technology understanding with policymakers that are often barriers to efficiently scaling these new solutions to mass adoption at a faster than glacial pace, and it will take patience and time. The human and financial capital is most certainly abundant.
Blockchain technology unites disparate communities and offers one of the best opportunities in history for industry and government to collaborate to better unite a fragmented world to deliver much greater economic and social impact.
