The bitcoin industry was out in force at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) first live gathering in two years, which began on Sunday (May 22).
The annual gathering of world leaders, central bankers, business titans, and cultural influencers is significant for the crypto industry, in part because the World Economic Forum (WEF) was an early adopter in taking the world of digital assets seriously and giving it access to, and a hearing in front of, a powerful global audience.
That worked in both directions, and Davos, Switzerland, is now a destination where the crypto world is regarded seriously. This helps to explain why the World Economic Forum announced a new collaboration with Microsoft and Accenture to create a “Global Collaboration Village” in the metaverse.
The announcement by WEF founder and CEO Klaus Schwab on Monday (May 23) that the organization “is embarking on an ambitious new journey to harness the potential of the metaverse as a platform for collaborative, inclusive, and effective international action” has the sweeping grandeur that true believers in the metaverse tend to use when extolling its virtues as the future of social media, socializing, and even marketing and commerce. For example, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta recently estimated that the immersive virtual world we’re promised will be a $3 trillion internet reboot.