Swiss Davos hosted another World Economic Forum. Davos was pretty interesting for crypto enthusiasts this year.
Traditionally, World Economic Forum is a place to discuss global financial policy and economic prospects.
Nowadays world economy experiences harsh times as the post-pandemic period overflew into the war in Europe.
The crypto market reacted accordingly, taking a huge drop since the beginning of 2022. And things like Terra and Luna collapse aren’t helping actually.
So some enthusiasts decided to ask world leaders about digital assets growth at WEF.
And one of the responses was pretty funny. Just look at what Davos leaders think of crypto.
Crypto street in Davos
The initiative belongs to Cointelegraph journalists, who asked some WEF participants about Bitcoin development and other crypto stuff.
As reported, Cointelegraph presenter Joseph Hall attempted to speak with the world’s elite while being mostly rejected, ridiculed, and ignored.
Wearing a sweatshirt with the BTC logo, Hall asked passersby to guess what that print represented. “That’s not Bentley, it’s Bugatti!”, one WEF participant joked, believing it’s a luxury car brand. That’s what Davos thinks of crypto!
“When the Soviet Union collapsed, they were left absolute penniless — so did millions of other people. If they could have some of Bitcoin can you imagine how their families would be better off?”, a crypto lawyer from India Irina Heaver said.
She explained that a younger generation is much more curious about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, while Russia is now experiencing a real crypto boom.
Of course, that’s because of the sanctions heap they got.
Being a close friend to WEF, the International Monetary Fund is not pushing for central bank digital currencies.
As well as for moving crypto out of proof-of-work consensus blockchains to displace energy-intensive mining with staking.
Finally, the Youtuber and Bitcoin HODLer Nas Daily said that he lost around $200 000 on Bitcoin to date because of the current market crash.
What is going on with CBDC?
As Cryptolife reported previously, Russia also wants to have its own digital Ruble. But they for some reason don’t care about USD-backed stablecoins and non-custodial wallets.
Having legalized digital assets in march, the Ukrainian government is now making huge steps to make a state-controlled CBDC. And some prominent crypto developers (Stellar in particular) agreed to help it.
Lately, only 9 countries launched their own CBDC. Seven of it is in the Eastern Caribbean, The Bahamas, and Nigeria.
But according to Atlantic Council data, there are 87 countries currently exploring CBDC. These countries represent over 90 percent of global GDP.
And 15 pilot projects of CBDC have been launched in countries like China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Thailand,
UAE, Sweeden, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Russia, and others.
So maybe we can see more WEF participants talk about crypto next time.
Sources: Cointelegraph