I’ve attended eight out of nine Consensus events since 2015, when the first one was held at the Times Center in New York. Looking back on all of them, I would say that no Consensus has felt as weighty as the one we will kick off next Wednesday at the Austin (Texas) Convention Center. Trading losses, along with slimmed-down marketing and travel budgets, will ensure a somewhat smaller turnout than last year, which drew a record 20,000 attendees from more than 130 countries. What makes this one so important is not attendance per se, it’s the topics that will be discussed. Alongside this year’s unprecedented regulatory crackdown, there’s also the background promise and anxiety stoked by the rapid encroachment of artificial intelligence into the broader digital economy. Meanwhile, there’s the quiet but progressive engagement of traditional finance (TradFi) with digital asset technology, and the fact that, whether we like it or not, governments continue to build central bank digital currencies. This year, we’re taking advantage of the Consensus audience’s cross-sectional representation to bring stakeholders from different perspectives together to hash out their differences and try to collectively resolve some of crypto’s thorniest challenges, the results of which will be part of our inaugural Consensus @ Consensus report. But while I’m excited for the in-depth, forward-looking conversations in those workshops and, more publicly, on eight different stages, programming this event has brought home the challenges in dealing with a technology that fosters such a wide range of opinions and emotions. People from a number of government agencies, financial institutions and mainstream consulting firms withdrew their previously agreed-upon speaking assignments in response to pressure from their internal public relations officers. This reluctance, it seems, reflects concerns about the image associated with this technology. What bothers me about this is that if one side of the debate is absent, they cede ground to the extremists on the other side. Not turning up is the best way for those who want a more regulated industry to allow the “crypto bros” to dominate the conversation. A more intensified echo chamber is hardly what we need. Now is the time for people to come together and address their differences, to advance the global conversation around this technology. It’s not the time to hide under a rock. The good news is that, thanks to the engagement from regulators and businesses in non-U.S. jurisdictions, Consensus 2023 definitely will not feel like an echo chamber. In a number of sessions we’ll be highlighting the regulatory approaches and industry developments in Japan, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, the U.K. Bermuda, the Bahamas, South Korea, Switzerland and other countries, as well as from the International Monetary Fund. At this pivotal moment, when regulation could drive innovation around one of the most important technologies of the century either into the shadows or toward people, companies and governments who can harness it and engineer systemic change, it is important that people are free to speak their mind. That’s what we plan to do in Austin. I hope to see you there. | 