Dataswyft in Davos (Day 1: 20 Jan 2025)

Hayley and I are enroute to Davos!

It’s the first day of the World Economic Forum 2025 in Davos and I’m kicking off with some market design insights from the world of Dataswyft.

There’s been a lot of talk about how citizens should have control over their data and how it would create value for everyone if they do.

This is usually espoused by consultants, technologists, policy makers and even Dataswyft.

They are not wrong. But giving consumers control over data is only half the story. It’s like saying - gold would be valuable - go and mine it - and then no one tells you what the market would be like in the other side of the market. Is it gold jewellery? Gold as a commodity? Gold ingots? Clearly gold as a commodity is a different product from gold as jewellery so the market structure would be very different even if it’s all gold (is it a platform? A 2-sided market ? A 3-sided market? A supply chain?). Would the market buy gold as jewellery first before gold as commodity or would it be the other way around? Or is it just ways of refining gold before it even finds a market?

Everyone ignores the elephant in the room and sells more picks and shovels. That’s to be expected. Any new asset would always start that way.

I will be talking much more about the demand side of the market in Davos.

Will keep you all updated!

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Dataswyft in Davos (Day before: 19 Jan 2025)