JAKARTA - Free bitcoin pizza stalls and a "Liquidity Lounge" are among the treats offered to attendees at this year's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. In the annual gathering blockchain and cryptocurrency companies have taken the lead, despite the recent decline in the value of digital coins.
Executives from the crypto sector have attended the annual meeting of business leaders and politicians in the Swiss Alpine resort, seeking to encourage faster adoption of their technology, most of which is not regulated by individual governments.
The prominence of the crypto crowd at Davos, while mostly on the sidelines of the main event, came as the cryptocurrency lost $800 billion in market value earlier this month.
Small traders have flocked to crypto in hopes of quick returns, despite warnings from regulators that this recently emerged asset could be high risk. Luna, until recently the eighth largest digital coin and backed by institutional crypto investors, has lost almost all of its value.
“What surprised me was how quickly it actually exploded into nothingness,” Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle Internet Financial, whose USDC stablecoin is pegged to the U.S. dollar, said of Luna's collapse.
"To see something that looks like a real high-growth competition actually explode to zero in 72 hours, I've never seen anything like it," he told Reuters.
But recent heavy losses have not hindered crypto companies' plans to showcase their products and services.
Securrency Inc, a digital marketplace infrastructure backed by Abu Dhabi, is coming to Davos for the first time this year. "We've come to build relationships and networks and show how it can bridge new technologies and traditional finance," said Securrency Inc CEO Dan Doney.
Securrency Inc has also set up its own digital currency panel agenda, World Economic Forum style, right outside the security line for the main conference center.
Tether, one of the largest stablecoins in the world, is also offering a free cut to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day on May 22, when in 2010 Lazlo Hanyecz paid for two pizzas with 10.000 bitcoins, worth around 41 at the time.
Bitcoin, which was worth 30.332 as of Monday, May 23 has already fallen to its lowest level since December 2020 in early May. Whereas the world's largest cryptocurrency has reached a record high of 69.000 in November 2021.
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“We are used to this, and as the market gets bigger, the peaks and valleys will be smoother,” said Cliff Sarkin, chief operating officer of CasperLabs, a blockchain technology provider for businesses, which hosted the speaker and event.
"Tokens associated with Casper's technology have also taken a hit," Sarkin told Reuters.
The WEF, which typically caters to the financial elite including major banks from Citigroup to Credit Suisse, holds a panel on cryptocurrency's carbon footprint and its future and one on decentralized finance.
“It's been improving outside and inside the gates,” said Stan Stalnacker, chief strategy officer at social network Hub Culture, which also operates digital currencies, referring to crypto's presence at the conference and on the sidelines.
Stalnacker estimates that about 50% of the city's storefronts have been occupied by blockchain or cryptocurrency companies during the event.
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