WEF predicts crypto will be ‘integral part of economy’ despite bear market
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has predicted that – despite the bear market – crypto will “continue to be an integral part of the modern economy”.
The international, non-governmental lobbying organisation based in Cologny, Switzerland, made the comments in a report even after it acknowledged 2022 “was a terrible year for crypto” that saw the loss of $2trn (£1.6trn) in market value.
The WEF went as far as to say that 2022 was not just another crypto winter “but more of an ice age”. Additionally, the WEF took aim at regulators for “failing to create sensible regulations” surrounding crypto.
The report – which forms part of the WEF annual meeting, better known as Davos, that starts on 16 January 2023 – was written by Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy, at Circle.
The fintech firm is one of the founding company’s behind the stablecoin usd coin (USDC) – the other USDC founder being crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN).
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The dotcom bubble
In the report, Disparte compared crypto with the dotcom bubble that burst in the early 2000s and handed “over the future of the internet to more durable companies, business models and use cases". He added:
The head of global policy for Circle also remarked that 2022 was “littered with the tombstones of failed crypto firms and projects”.
Despite this, Disparte added that while “the underlying technology of cryptography and blockchain is generalisable to all industries… experimentation at the core of financial services, among other sectors, continues unabated”.
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JPMorgan’s ‘volte-face on policy to crypto’
Disparte also commented on JPMorgan and its “most famous volte-face on policy towards crypto and blockchain”.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, is a well-known crypto sceptic, but in May 2021, the CEO told the Wall Street Journal that he was not a “supporter” of bitcoin (BTC) and that he didn’t “care about bitcoin”. Still, he did add: “On the other hand, clients are interested, and I don’t tell clients what to do.”
In July 2021, JPMorgan became the first major US bank to give all its wealth management clients access to cryptocurrency funds. This was according to an internal JPMorgan memo obtained by Business Insider.
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