DAVOS, Switzerland - Even on the trains, there's no escaping cryptocurrency.
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) - canceled in 2021, postponed in 2022 - officially begins Tuesday in Davos, Switzerland. Cryptocurrency advocates kicked off the parties Sunday with bitcoin pizza stands and blockchain pavilions with eye-catching banners lining the famous promenade.
WEF attendees were bombarded with signs advertising stablecoin issuer Circle and crypto broker Bitcoin Suisse as they stepped off planes in Zurich or trains in Davos. Casual passersby talked about owning Shiba Inu and Cardano. At the end of the day, the cryptocurrency specialists dispersed to one of the nearby AirBnBs.
"Five years ago, we were the only crypto company on the boardwalk," said Sandra Ro, CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), at a kickoff party at a local church (called "The Sanctuary") just outside the locked conference venue. "And look at it now," she added.
Perhaps nothing heralded the arrival of the turbulent crypto industry at the world's largest business table more than the fact that the WEF itself is having serious discussions about digital money, with industry participants as key players.
Jeremy Allaire, chairman and CEO of Circle Pay, and Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, sat side by side Monday to discuss remittances and digital money at a briefing in the WEF media village. The panel, titled "Remittances for Recovery: A New Era of Digital Money," also featured Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, a Bangladesh-based development non-governmental organization.
The forum also featured a discussion on the future of the global economy, the U.S. economy, and digital central bank currencies (CBDCs) themselves. That's not to say that the leaders at the forum are already accepting cryptocurrencies - but they're not ignoring them.
Creeping introduction
A panel discussion with Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and economist Jason Furman, ostensibly focused on the future of the U.S. economy, continued the discussion on cryptocurrencies.
"For many countries around the world, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) may make sense, I don't think the United States needs to do that," said Furman, an economics professor at Harvard University.
All of the panelists were quick to enthusiastically share their thoughts on stablecoins and the like, though New York Times Deputy Managing Editor Rebecca Blumenstein, who moderated the panel, did her best to stop it.
Toomey mentioned a bill he introduced to regulate stablecoins and asked about the role of a CBDC in a world where private stablecoins are flourishing.
"I think we should create a framework where privately issued stablecoins can flourish within reason, and if that happens, I'm not sure how much we need a digital dollar," he said.
Another panel, which focused on the global economy, also addressed the value proposition of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
"The younger generation is saying that the older generation has devalued the dollar or the value of other currencies, so something new may not be such a bad thing," said David M. Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, in a panel on the future of the global economy in the face of slower economic growth and the impact of sanctions.
Official presence
The panels to officially discuss cryptocurrencies went far beyond that.
Garlinghouse and Allaire commented on the future of finance in general and the urgent need for regulatory clarity in the crypto world during their panel on remittances.
According to Allaire, whose company issues USD Coin (USDC), a crypto asset pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar, the world is moving toward a point where the concept of a cross-border payment "sounds as crazy" as the concept of a cross-border email.
"We don't think about cross-border email. We don't think about cross-border Internet, it's absurd to imagine that. And I think we're on the cusp of that with money. And when it comes to remittances, I think the concept of remittance is going to disappear as well," Allaire said.
Garlinghouse, whose company Ripple is currently embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the 2013 sale of the digital token XRP, warned that governments control financial systems and said that is unlikely to change in his lifetime.
"I think if you approach regulators with 'you need to conform to us,' that's dead on arrival," Garlinghouse said.
Responding to a question about the lack of regulatory certainty in the crypto sector, Garlinghouse said regulatory clarity is a problem that needs to be solved, adding that the U.S. is behind in establishing clear rules for the crypto sector.
"I say don't incorporate in the U.S. because some are hostile and uncertain there, and there is much more clarity in Japan and Singapore, or go global here in Switzerland, because more clarity, more certainty will help [drive innovation]. That will help remittances," Garlinghouse said.
Allaire, who has attended the Davos conference since 2008, told CoinDesk that cryptocurrencies have taken on a new importance at the WEF and hopes are already high for next year.
Allaire closed the panel by saying that he hopes the crypto sector will bring more examples of solutions that work for people to the table in a year's time.
That's not to say central bankers and financial regulators are sold on the idea of digital assets.
On the main stage of the WEF Congress, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not money, but assets.
"A prerequisite for something to be money is that it be a stable store of value," Georgieva said.
She was joined by Axel P. Lehmann, CEO of Credit Suisse, Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, governor of the Bank of Thailand, and François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the French central bank, to discuss CBDCs.
According to a recent report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), also known as the central bank for central banks, nine out of 10 central banks worldwide are considering the design and issuance of CBDCs.
Outside, looking in
The Promenade, the main road leading to the Congress where official WEF panels are held, is dominated by crypto companies. Filecoin, which hosted a crowded welcome party on Sunday, resides in a sanctuary at the top of the street, followed by Circle just a few hundred feet away.
Other big crypto names with lounges and their own programming include Polkadot, Securrency, GBBC and Casper Labs. One thing they all have in common is great advertising.
"2018 was all about cryptocurrencies, and now it's all about branding," said Sheila Warren, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation. "It's established companies coming to Davos as an industry."