Crypto Takeaways From Davos: Politics And Money Collide

Crypto Takeaways From Davos: Politics And Money Collide

Yohan Yun

While geopolitical tensions and the Greenland standoff set the tone at Davos 2026, crypto resurfaced as a secondary but consequential theme.

US President Donald Trump used a few minutes of his Davos speech to double down on his ambition to turn the US into the world’s crypto capital and voice support for crypto-friendly legislation.

His tone was different from central banks. In a panel with crypto bigwigs, the governor of the Bank of France criticized private money and yield-bearing stablecoins while promoting central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

Crypto executives debated money sovereignty with France’s central bank governor at Davos 2026. Source: World Economic Forum

Crypto consensus did not emerge in Davos, but a visible point of disagreement did. US political messaging framed crypto as a geopolitical asset, while at least one major European central banker warned that private money threatens financial stability and sovereignty.

Here are the crypto takeaways from Davos 2026.

Donald Trump said in his Davos speech on Wednesday that he hopes to sign a crypto market structure bill “very soon.”

Also known as the CLARITY Act, the bill was due for a US Senate markup last week but was delayed after crypto giants like Coinbase pulled support.

Trump treated the US crypto regulation as a matter of geopolitical urgency.

“It is politically popular but much more importantly, we have to make it so that China doesn’t have a hold of it, and once they get that hold, we won’t be able to get it back. So I’m honored to have done it,” Trump said, referring to his signing of the GENIUS Act. He linked the bill to the importance of the pending market structure legislation.

The White House wants the US to be the crypto capital of the world and sees regulation as a competitive weapon. Trump acknowledged that the bill remains in Congress but spoke as if its passing were a matter of timing.

The US president’s special address was introduced by BlackRock’s Larry Fink, the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager. Trump spoke for more than an hour; crypto accounted for only a small section of his speech.

One of the most widely shared crypto moments at Davos came when France’s top central banker pushed back against crypto, even as he praised tokenization in a Wednesday panel discussion.

Banque de France Governor François Villeroy de Galhau said tokenization and stablecoins are likely to be “the name of the game” in 2026, stating that they can modernize financial infrastructure. He acknowledged tokenization as a meaningful financial advance, particularly for wholesale markets, and cited Europe’s CBDC efforts as a global frontrunner.

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