Bitcoin was the talk of the town in Switzerland last year when the world’s movers and shakers assembled at Davos for the 2018 World Economic Forum, but this year the cryptocurrency demands a far less prominent position at the table.
The comparison is startlingly obvious. From getting a fair degree of attention a year ago at the 2018 Conference, albeit on the way down even then, the cryptocurrencies are less liable to attract the attention of delegates this year, particularly given the current trials of leaders from the US, UK, and France all entangled in their own domestic issues, some of them shared.
Angel Versetti, CEO of blockchain-based company Ambrosus observed: “While last year, people were talking about crypto and blockchain anywhere and everywhere, this year there is comparatively little discussion around it.”
Hardly surprising given Trump’s domestic battle and government shutdown, May’s Brexit squabbles and Macrons’ sea of yellow vests. The subject still comes up though, some fairly hopeful of a market revival, some less, like the advisor to the Bank of England, Huw van Steenis who said that cryptocurrencies weren’t on the list of priorities at this year’s summit, “I’m not so worried about cryptocurrencies,” he commented not unexpectedly, “They fail the basic tests of financial services, they’re not a great unit of exchange, they don’t hold value and they’re slower.”
Not the case at all, according to Jeremy Allaire — CEO of Circle, the Goldman Sachs-backed payments and tech company as he argues that fintech will be dependent on decentralized technology moving forward:
“Crypto is fundamental to the future, and so crypto computing, which is what these blockchain platforms really are, they’re open computing platforms — we need tamper-proof, resilient, decentralized infrastructure if we want society to survive the digital age.”
Allaire went on to argue that Circle was also a huge supporter of central-bank digital currencies, suggesting that the private sector will be the leader in setting the pace for the creation of these centralized crypto assets. However, Jeff Schumacher, founder of BCG Digital Ventures was less optimistic during a CNBC panel discussion as he mentioned, “I do believe it [cryptocurrency] will go to zero,” adding, “I think it’s a great technology, but I don’t believe it’s a currency. It’s not based on anything.”
Next year could be an embarrassment for some of these commentators if Bitcoin hits its expected heights this year as Wall Street comes on board.
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