Crypto Crowd Wouldn’t Dream of Missing Davos

Welcome to Bloomberg Crypto, our twice-weekly look at Bitcoin, blockchain and more. In today’s edition, stacy-marie ishmael reports on the crypto scene at Davos: 

Davos dispatch

The crypto crowd had a big comedown in 2022 — but it’s a new year, and these folks are nothing if not audacious. There’s no way they were going to miss 

Here, in the mountains of Switzerland, signs for Polygon (a blockchain); Hedera (another blockchain); and Circle (operator of the USDC stablecoin) were arrayed along the same slush-covered main street as Deloitte, Zoom, and Meta. There were no lambos, but there was one “Bitcoin car,” an orange Mercedes reportedly owned by the founder of Ukrainian crypto firm Kuna.

At Circle’s branded event space, a bunch of crypto guys were doing what they have always done: argue loudly about who’d been in the industry the longest, and over the merits of different stablecoins. Here, in the Swiss mountains, signs for the Polygone (a blockchain); Hedera (another chain of blockers); and Circle (USDC stablecoin operator) have been laid out along the same slush-covered main street as Deloitte, Zoom and Meta.at circle’s branded event space, a bunch of crypto guys were doing what they have always done: argue loudly about who’d been in the industry the longest, and on the merits of individual policies.

There was less discussion than you might expect about Sam Bankman-Fried. There have been fewer discussions on Sam Bankman-Fried than expected. At a standing-room-only gathering hosted by the Financial Times, Circle’s Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Allaire held forth with historian (and Bloomberg Opinion contributor) Niall Ferguson on the topic of crypto’s “great reset.” There's been less talk on Sam Bankman-Fried than we thought.

Allaire, unlike many of his crypto counterparts, wore a white badge signaling his access to the main World Economic Forum, where he participated in one of the official panels. Allaire, unlike many of his crypto counterparts, wore a white badge indicating his access to the world's leading economic forum, where he attended one of the official panels. It is one of several crypto ceos marching in the traditional man's uniform of costumes davos and snowboots, a dress also worn by the head of copper dmitry tokarev as he hurried from meeting to meeting. Allaire and tokarev position themselves as experts in digital assets that speak fluently traditional.

Allaire and Tokarev both claim to be digital asset experts who are fluent in TradFi. Source: @HeritageThe crypto community's fundamental optimism was perhaps best expressed by a literal moonshot presented by the filecoin foundation, the custodians of a blockchain-based file storage protocol. They partner with Lockheed Martin to "build space as the next frontier" for open data standards, their founding manager Megan Klimen told me. Klimen, a scientist by training, said she was attracted to distributed registry technology because storing and transmitting data on a large scale was a critical and unresolved issue. They partner with Lockheed Martin to "build space as the next frontier" for open data standards, their founding director Megan Klimen told me."

Data on the blockchain in space? It’s not exactly Bitcoin going to the moon, but if it means a real use case for a technology that even UBS head Colm Kelleher described as “unstoppable,” it might be something the Davos consensus can get behind.

Charting it out

Hearing them out

What we’re reading (and writing)

• Bankers and Regulators Find Common Ground on Crypto at Davos
• New FTX CHief Says Crypto Exchange Could Restart (Wall Street Journal)
• Crypto Firm Genesis Is Preparing to File for Bankruptcy
• Charting it Developers are not discouraged despite the crypto chaos of last year, The number of new developers who wrote open-source code to support the industry rose to a record Source: Electric Capital Hearing them out“One of the problems I have with the crypto business is that many participants see this as a game all at once, and this kind of the greatest accomplishment is... if I screwed you to the max.
• Peter Thiel’s Fund Wound Down 8-Year Bitcoin Bet Before Market Crash (Financial Times)
• Klaas KnotPresident, Central Bank of the Netherlands and member of the Board of Directors of the European Central Bank.

A central banker opines on the issues around crypto and regulation at a panel discussion moderated by Bloomberg's stacy-marie ishmael at Davos  What we’re reading (and writing)Bankers and Regulators Find Common Ground on Crypto at DavosNew FTX CHief Says Crypto Exchange Could Restart (Wall Street Journal)Crypto Firm Genesis Is Preparing to File for Bankruptcy If someone forwarded this to you, sign up here. We welcome all feedback at [email protected]

The FTX cadres who helped lead the crypto empire of Sam Bankman-Fried. Tune in to the Bloomberg Crypto daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the iHeartRadio app, or listen on the web.

— With assistance by Suvashree Ghosh