Thursday, Jan 18, 2024

Davos debate: tokenization rules, the ETF dust is settling

"How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else." – R. Buckminster Fuller  ||

Hello everyone, I hope you’re all doing well! My publishing schedule has been thrown off this week due to reasons, but next week it will be back on track (it has to be, it has to be…).

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I’m speaking at BlockWorks’ upcoming Digital Asset Summit conference in London on March 18-20. Normally I say no to conferences, but this is one of the very few worth travelling for. If you’re thinking of going, it’d be great to say hi, and here’s a discount code you can use: CIMN10.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• Davos debate: should tokenization follow the “same activity, same rules” approach?

• ETF digestion

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

Davos debate: should tokenization follow the “same activity, same rules” approach?

I was hoping I could get through the week without mentioning Davos, since the conference has been getting increasingly tedious over the years, not to mention irrelevant.

But, alas, that harsh judgement is largely unfair, since the agenda does attempt to tackle large issues by inviting global “influencers” to say their piece. We can mock the private jets used to travel to a venue to discuss the perils of climate change, we can scoff at privileged financiers dismissing tools for financial freedom, and we can laugh at the hypocrisy of wanting to fight misinformation with censorship. Yet we can also appreciate the showcasing, parading and parties for the networking opportunities they are. And we can enjoy the glitz of the media coverage, which is increasingly what Davos is about.

Plus, intriguing yet overlooked debates sometimes get surfaced. This happened yesterday, on the Tokenization Economy panel, which I actually enjoyed – good dialogue, smart people (Circle’s Jeremy Allaire, Stellar’s Denelle Dixon, Euroclear’s Lieve Mostrey, and Skybridge’s Anthony Scaramucci).

The discussion was about use cases, regulation, jurisdictional differences, the usual stuff but eloquently said. At the very end, however, just as I was concluding “nice, but nothing new”, an audience member asked for the panel’s opinion on the regulatory approach of “same activity, same risk, same regulation”. A-ha! Finally, something potentially controversial.