Three crypto takeaways from the World Economic Forum

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Hi. Eric here.

Crypto doesn’t exist in isolation — it’s affected by the whims of politicians, business leaders and the world at large.

This week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, reminded the industry of that fact. The aggressive rhetoric of US President Donald Trump swayed markets while the comments by Wall Street giant leaders offered insights into what the future holds for digital assets.

To me, three things stood out.

The Trump effect

The world elite queued for hours to see Trump speak in Davos, according to those who were there.

Listeners had to endure the president’s rambling monologue that touched on Joe Biden’s legacy, windmills, Ukraine, and Venezuela before he promised not to “use force” to claim Greenland.

Even crypto featured briefly as the Republican leader said he is “working to ensure America remains the crypto capital of the world.”

Despite that, uncertainty about the White House’s foreign policies continues to put strain on the US’ relationships with its closest allies.

This week, those policies triggered the so-called “Sell America” trade where investors dumped their US assets and weakened the dollar.

Bitcoin isn’t immune to that uncertainty. The top crypto fell 6.6% over the past seven days, plunging alongside other riskier assets like tech stocks.

It’s a reminder that politics will sway markets, including cryptocurrencies.

‘New all-time high’

Crypto chieftains remained optimistic.

Indeed, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said he was “very bullish” on the industry’s prospects in 2026.

“We’ll see an all-time high,” he said on the sidelines of the WEF.

Why? Because of the Trump administration’s support of digital assets.

Beyond signing a landmark stablecoin bill into law, Trump has also issued a flurry of pro-crypto executive orders, pardoned industry figures, and installed digital-asset allies in senior government roles.

In short, Trump has ended the crypto crackdown of the Biden years.

That has incentivised Wall Street giants to pay attention to how crypto is a “massive sea change.”

It has encouraged fintech firms and Wall Street stalwarts to explore creating their own stablecoins, launch exchange-traded funds tied to digital currencies, and to integrate blockchain into their infrastructure.

Things are looking up for crypto.

TradFi’s all in

Indeed, the Swiss summit served as a reminder that Wall Street is all in on crypto.

Larry Fink, CEO of investment giant BlackRock, waxed lyrical about how updating the traditional financial system to run on blockchain was “necessary.”

“We would be reducing fees, we would do more democratisation,” Fink said. “[If] we have one common blockchain, we could reduce corruption.”

The BlackRock chair has championed tokenisation, the process of putting real-world assets like stocks and bonds on the blockchain, in the past.

Now it seems like others have caught on too.

“Blockchain is the future for traditional banking,” said Sergio Ermotti, CEO of UBS, in Davos.

No wonder that they’re excited: Asset manager Grayscale forecasts that tokenisation will swell to a $35 trillion industry by 2030.

Still, their public buy-in of blockchain was surely a welcome reprieve from the doom and gloom of the markets this week.

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Prediction markets have a reputation for playing a bit hard and fast with the rules. A post Polymarket this week that was promptly denied by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will probably do little to help matters.