At WEF in Davos for Blockchain

The helicopter highway over my house towards Davos has started again. The World Economic Forum (WEF) is opening tomorrow, the annual gathering of world leaders. Even with Trump not coming, everybody wants to be there, including the blockchain and crypto community. 

Participating at the official WEF is quite costly. Ten years ago, while launching NovaTorque, I managed to introduce its founder John Petro as WEF Technology Pioneer. It gave us quite some publicity (feature in Time magazine) but we had to decline the invitation to Davos. Just the participation fee was over $20k and it for sure did not get less expensive since. If you want to mingle with world leaders and CEOs you may consider it a bargain.

This year the topic is Globalization 4.0. The tech theme is Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain is not a focus point. Not being on the agenda did not discourage the blockchain community from setting up a whole slew of events for the coming week in Davos. While the organizers of the official WEF frown upon these extra events, they definitely appreciate the additional crowding and publicity for their yearly moment hosting the world stage.

The first time I noticed blockchain at the WEF was a couple years ago, in 2017. It featured the inauguration of the Global Blockchain Business Council. Hosting an event for the third year in a row, they have gathered quite some speakers (among many others Daniel Gasteiger from Procivics, and Brian Behlendorf from Hyperledger). For sure it doesn't hurt having a celebrity like Matt Sorum, the drummer of Guns N’ Roses, on the list.

New to the party is Crypto Mountain. They started an event in March last year: skiing during the day, blockchain in the evening, and partying at night. This year they offer a full program during the WEF. The organizers Reto Gadient and Hans Overturf set up a shipping container and brought Crypto Valley, what we Swiss call all our Blockchain and Crypto companies, to Davos. Besides hearing and meeting the different companies, such as Kore Technologies, Crypto Mountain also has a daily Raclette reception – great to get some food and to warm up while networking with Switzerland's crypto insiders.

There will be even more blockchain and crypto folks in Davos as there are a lot of other events. For example LAToken is running the Blockchain Economic Forum (BEF) Thursday through Saturday. On the speaker list are the CEOs from Ripple, Thompson Reuters, and economist Nouriel Roubini. Not everything is public or already announced though. There are also secret events for which you have to apply. One of them, Davos Illuminati, is run through this telegram channel. 

My first trip to the WEF was last year. It was organized by my longtime Silicon Valley acquaintance KiteVC Bill Tai under the ACTAI label. While Trump gave his speech we skied the empty slopes at the Jakobshorn (sorry Jill you had to take the rescue sled down the mountain). In the evening there was a nice gathering with a panel discussion and fire side chats. I still love the idea of Nishan Degnarain, a government official from Mauritius, who wanted to tokenize the fishery of bluefin tuna in the Indian Ocean to prevent overfishing. Or hearing from Jemma Green what challenges Power Ledger had to confront during and after their ICO. Unfortunately there is no ACTAI event this year in Davos, but you will find plenty of others in conjunction with the extreme tech challenge that Bill runs with Sir Richard Branson.

So where should I go this year? Which events should I attend without dropping a fortune? Any events you can recommend?

Please drop me a line in the comments.

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Robert (RoRo) is a technology executive and entrepreneur. He is the CEO and co-founder of Securosys, a leader in cyber and blockchain security, serving customers with its HSM network appliances (and cloud service) all over the world.

You can connect with him directly or reach him via email: roro (at) securosys (dot) ch

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