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The World Economic Forum's (WEF) annual meeting, which was postponed from 2021 to 2022, begins on Tuesday in Davos, Switzerland. On Sunday, cryptocurrency supporters kicked off the festivities with bitcoin pizza stands and blockchain pavilions adorned with colourful banners lining the famous promenade.

As they stepped off aircraft in Zurich or trains in Davos, participants were inundated with signs advertising stablecoin issuer Circle and crypto dealer Bitcoin Suisse. Passers-by exchanged stories about their Shiba Inu and Cardano. The crypteratti dispersed to one of the local AirBnBs at the end of the day.

"We were the only crypto company on Promenade five years ago," Sandra Ro, CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), remarked at a kickoff party outside the closed-off conference site at a local church called "The Sanctuary." "And now look at it," she continued.

 

The fact that the World Economic Forum is hosting meaningful discussions about digital money, with industry participants as essential players, may have signaled the volatile crypto industry's debut at the world's largest business table.

At a WEF media village issue briefing on Monday, Jeremy Allaire, chairman and CEO of Circle Pay, and Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, sat side by side to discuss remittances and digital money. Asif Saleh, Executive Director of BRAC, a Bangladesh-based developmental non-governmental organization, was also on the panel, which was themed "Remittances for Recovery: A New Era of Digital Money."

The forum also featured a panel debate on the global economy's future, the US economy, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). That isn't to imply that the forum's global leaders welcome cryptocurrencies right now – but they aren't dismissing them either.

Infiltrating

A panel that reportedly focused on the future of the US economy included Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, US Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), and economist Jason Furman.

"While digital central bank currencies (CBDC) may make sense for many countries throughout the world, I don't believe the United States needs to do so," stated Furman, an economics professor at Harvard University.

Despite the best efforts of New York Times deputy managing editor Rebecca Blumenstein, who moderated the event, all of the panelists rapidly became extremely enthused about giving their ideas about stablecoins and the like.

Toomey asked about the function of a CBDC in a world where private stablecoins thrive, referencing a measure he filed to regulate stablecoins.

 

"I think we need a structure that allows privately generated stablecoins to exist in a reasonable environment," he stated.

Another panel on the global economy discussed bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies' value proposition.

"The younger generation claims that the older generation devalued the dollar or the value of other currencies, so maybe something new isn't so bad," David M. Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, said during a panel discussion on the global economy's future amid slower economic growth and the fallout from sanctions.

Official participation

The panels that were supposed to be about cryptocurrencies ended up going far deeper.

During their remittances panel, Garlinghouse and Allaire discussed the future of finance in general and the urgent need for regulatory clarity in the crypto world.

The world is headed to a place where the concept of a cross-border payment will be as "crazy sounding" as the thought of a cross-border email, according to Allaire, whose company issues USD coin (USDC), a crypto asset pegged to the value of the US dollar.

"Cross-border emails aren't something we consider. We don't consider having a cross-border web browsing session because it's crazy to consider. With money, I feel we're on the verge of that. And I believe that when it comes to remittances, the concept of a remittance will vanish as well "Allaire explained.

 

Garlinghouse, whose business Ripple is currently facing a lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission over the sale of the digital coin XRP in 2013, warned that governments control financial systems and predicted that this would not change in his lifetime.

"The thing to think about," Garlinghouse added, "is that if you approach the regulators with 'you need to adjust to us,' that's dead on arrival."

In response to a question about the lack of regulatory certainty in the crypto sector, Garlinghouse said that regulatory clarity is a problem that has to be addressed, and that the United States is trailing behind in establishing clear laws for the industry.

"I recommend against incorporating in the United States because certain people are unfriendly and unclear there, and there is much more clarity in Japan and Singapore, or go here in Switzerland to invest globally with more clarity and assurance. As a result, remittances will benefit "According to Garlinghouse.

Crypto had gained a new level of significance at the WEF, according to Allaire, who has been attending the Davos conference since 2008, and aspirations for next year are already high.

Allaire concluded the panel by expressing his expectation that in a year's time, the crypto sector will have more instances of solutions that work for people.

That isn't to argue that central bankers and financial authorities are enthusiastic about digital assets.

On the main stage of the World Economic Forum, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stated that cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are assets rather than money.

"A solid store of value is a necessity for something that would be money," Georgieva stated.

To discuss CBDCs, she was joined by Axel P. Lehmann, chairman of the board of Credit Suisse, Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, governor of the Bank of Thailand, and François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of France's central bank.

Nine out of ten central banks around the world are examining the design and issue of CBDCs, according to a recent research by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), popularly known as the central bank for central banks.

Looking out the window

Crypto firms dominate the Promenade, the major thoroughfare leading to the Congress, where the official WEF panels take place. Filecoin, which held a large welcoming party on Sunday, is located in a sanctuary at the top of the street, followed by Circle a few hundred feet down.

 

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