Thriller Insider: Consensus Distributed 2020 - Day 1 Recap

12/05/2020 1h 18min

Listen "Thriller Insider: Consensus Distributed 2020 - Day 1 Recap"

Episode Synopsis

CoinDesk's annual conference on the future of the global financial system is happening this week. Consensus: Distributed features hundreds of hours of programming with more than 150 speakers over five days, from May 11th-15th.
Highlights
Yves Mersch on Central Bank Digital Currencies
Member of the Executive Board, Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board • European Central Bank
Yves Mersch was appointed to the Executive Board of the ECB in 2012 when serving his third term as Governor of the Banque centrale du Luxembourg, a position he had held since 1998. In 2019 he was appointed Vice-Chair of the ECB’s Supervisory Board.Before setting up his country’s central bank, he represented his country in the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Investment Bank and other multilateral organisations, as well as in private companies where he has been globally active in both financial and industrial areas.Mr Mersch holds postgraduate degrees in political science from Paris Sorbonne, and law from Paris Panthéon University. He is the longest-serving member on the ECB’s Governing Council.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers & fintech author and futurist Dave Birch
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers is one of America’s leading economists. In addition to serving as 71st Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration, Dr. Summers served as Director of the White House National Economic Council in the Obama Administration, as President of Harvard University, and as the Chief Economist of the World Bank.Dr. Summers’ tenure at the U.S. Treasury coincided with the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history. He is the only Treasury Secretary in the last half century to have left office with the national budget in surplus. Dr. Summers has played a key role in addressing every major financial crisis for the last two decades.
David G.W. Birch is an author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services. He is Global Ambassador for Consult Hyperion (the secure electronic transactions consultancy that he helped to found), Technology Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (the London-based think tank) and a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey Business School.
Chris Giancarlo and the Digital Dollar Project & Dante Disparte of Libra Association
The Honorable J. Christopher (“Chris”) Giancarlo is an American attorney and former business executive who served as 13th Chairman of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Dante Disparte is the vice chairman and Head of Policy and Communications for the Libra Association, a newly-formed organization that has brought together social impact organizations and a diverse group of leading businesses from around the world to create a low-friction, high-trust payment system that empowers billions of people.
Gavin Wood on Chain Mergers and Acquisitions
Gavin Wood, an original co-founder of Ethereum, took a few good swipes at the second-largest cryptocurrency he helped create, calling out its lack of “agency” when upgrading to its next version, Ethereum 2.0.
Plan B discussion: Saifedean Ammous, Erik Voorhees
Saifedean Ammous is the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, the first academic study of the economics of bitcoin. He also runs saifedean.com, a platform for online courses in economics.
Erik Voorhees is among the top-recognized serial Bitcoin advocates and entrepreneurs, understanding Bitcoin as one of the most important inventions ever created by humanity.
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