The World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting begins this week in Davos, Switzerland, featuring globally recognized blockchain authority Don Tapscott as a key participant.His involvement comes at a time where blockchain technology is largely seen as the major topic of emphasis for this year’s meeting.Tapscott will also be keynoting the 5th Annual WISeKey Cybersecurity Roundtable at Davos, presenting on the topic of blockchains and the Internet of Value.At this event, Don will become the first author to digitally authenticate and sign copies of a book: his new bestseller “Blockchain Revolution.” The World Economic Forum has adopted the Fourth Industrial Revolution as its theme, based on a book by the same title authored by Klaus Schwab, WEF’s founder and executive chairman.“The First Revolution was steam where we mechanized things like shovels; the Second was electricity which enabled an economy of mass production; the Third was the computer which led to information technology and the internet and social media,” said Tapscott in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, just hours before his flight to Davos.“According to author Klaus Schwab, the foundational technology for the Fourth Industrial Revolution is the blockchain, insofar as it is a distributed ledger system now needed to manage wealth, value and prosperity creation in the world.

It is for this reason that this year’s forum is shaping up to be the ‘Blockchain Davos.’”Tapscott says that he’s counted over a dozen educational sessions centered on blockchains or blockchain-related matters on the public and private agenda as well as outside of the formal economic forum activities.While speaking at the WISeKey event, he’ll introduce the idea of a digital signature for his book signing.“The ability to track my book like a piece of art is pretty interesting, although I don’t know the details as of yet of how it actually works,” says Tapscott.litecoin settingsHe also plans to meet with an array of technology companies, public entities, government leaders, central bankers and ministers of finance while in Davos to discuss the current state of blockchain technology as well as its future possibilities.Tapscott is well aware that blockchain technology is competing for center stage with bigger issues like world leadership and Brexit.ethereum upgrade

“There is, no doubt, quite a bit of concern on the global stage about not only the Trump election, but the state of the world in general.With a general decline in prosperity where the middle class is falling behind, I expect there to be a lot of talk at Davos about how the world has become more unequal, unstable, unjust and unsustainable.” On the optimistic side, he believes that blockchain and distributed technologies will play a pivotal role moving forward in addressing a number of these concerns.ethereum chain data“Blockchain [technology] will allow us to change the way wealth gets created by engaging more people directly in the economy, ensuring that they actually get compensated for the value they create.” Heading into this year’s World Economic Forum, Tapscott offers a cautionary tale that he says could stall blockchain technology’s advancement in coming years.pitbull bitcoin

“The growing success of blockchain [technology] is creating a governance crisis in terms of its bottom up stewardship.Unlike the internet’s robust governance ecosystem with dozens of organizations and networks involved in ensuring that there are standards, advocacy, and knowledge, the blockchain Internet of Value proposition currently lacks these.I fear if we don’t get our act together quickly in this area, some very bad things could go wrong and, worst-case scenario, it could implode.”  Post-Davos, Tapscott says that he and his son Alex are in the early stages of curating a multimillion-dollar research program known as Blockchain Research Institute dedicated to furthering the depth and breadth of knowledge around the developing blockchain ecosystem.ethereum march 31In addition to exploring use cases, applications and strategies involving a number of major industries, the program will also look at how blockchain technology will change the way companies are run as well as regulatory impacts.litecoin trader

“We think this is going to break some logjams because with where the current state of things are right now, there are more questions than answers.We need to work to correct that.”The World Economic Forum in Davos has been paying growing attention to new financial technologies, including Bitcoin and Blockchain for several years already.The WEF annual conference this year was mostly dedicated to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and FinTech.The World’s financial and banking giants again shared their attitude to digital currencies and Blockchain technology.bitcoin bourseSome of them did note that new distributed ledger solutions will change the financial industry soon, while others condemned Bitcoin to failure.ethereum real estateAfter the first day of the conference an interview with Garry Lyons, Chief Innovation Officer at MasterCard, to Business Insider caught everyone’s attention.circle bitcoin countries

He said that the company is “interested in seeing where blockchain technology goes” and the company is already investing in Digital Currency Group (DCG), the Bitcoin and Blockchain company.“It’s not just the industry that’s excited about blockchain — it’s the world, everyone.Even at Davos, every single tech panel I have gone to mentions blockchain and some people call it ‘the second coming.’ But while we think it’s very interesting, we don’t want to, and no one wants to, be blindsided by rushing into it [as the technology is still developing].” Since the rise of Bitcoin at the end of 2014, the banking industry feels the pressure of losing power over the financial world and society for centuries.Now banks are trying to get on the train of the booming fintech market.No doubt, that representatives of the banks that participate in R3 consortium would use quite similar statements, while making bets on their research of distributed ledgers and not Bitcoin.Here are some of the statements: Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citi said: “We know that bitcoin itself is a complete failure and shows the number one law of programming and software: that anything that can be programmed can be hacked.

So nothing is completely secure.” James Gorman, the chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley stated: "It's not going to change everyone's life tomorrow."John Cryan, co-chief executive of Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, also mentioned the interest in Blockchain, rather than Bitcoin: "Blockchain technology is interesting.Bitcoin, I don't think is."During the conference the latest paper on virtual currencies was released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of IMF, cited it at the WEF on Wednesday: “Virtual currencies (VCs) and especially their underlying technologies are a potentially important advance for the financial sector that could increase efficiency and financial inclusion, but can also serve as vehicles for money laundering, terrorism financing, and tax evasion.” Switzerland is the country with the most developed financial industry and most trusted banks in the world.The main conferences, like World Economic Forum also takes place exactly here in Davos.

Possibly a new game changing innovation in the banking industry will come from Switzerland as well.The swiss news and information platform swissinfo.ch took an interview with Guido Rudolphi, who plans to create the world’s first Bitcoin bank in Switzerland.He expressed much more optimistic statements about the future of Bitcoin.He told us: “I am not for one second concerned for bitcoin.It is not doomed.This whole discussion reminds me of the time the internet started.We have had these discussions about bitcoin before, but they have never been filled with such drama.” He believes that while some investors now want this technology to go faster and to gain profit as soon as possible it is better from a “technology standpoint” that it is “growing slower whilst remaining secure”.Guido Rudolphi has also pointed out the possible future of companies that are looking forward to Blockchain without Bitcoin.“A few companies have jumped on the train.They want bitcoin technology without using bitcoin.