Crypto Conquers Davos: Ripple & Hedera Storm WEF 2026 With Institutional Takeover

Forget closed-door meetings and whispered deals. This year, the blockchain revolution isn't just knocking on the doors of the World Economic Forum—it's kicking them down.

The New Power Brokers

Ripple and Hedera aren't here to ask for a seat at the table. They're demonstrating why the table itself needs to be rebuilt on a distributed ledger. While traditional finance panels debate incremental reforms, these protocols are showcasing live settlements that bypass legacy systems entirely—cutting transaction times from days to seconds and slashing costs to fractions of a cent.

Real Assets, Digital Future

The chatter isn't about speculative tokens. It's about tokenizing everything from carbon credits to sovereign bonds, creating liquid, transparent markets for assets that have been trapped in bureaucratic silos for decades. The pitch is simple: efficiency that would make a Swiss banker blush, wrapped in regulatory-grade compliance.

The Institutional Tipping Point

The mood has shifted from cautious curiosity to strategic deployment. Pilots have become production systems. The question in the corridors is no longer 'if,' but 'how fast' and 'at what scale.' It's the sound of trillions in institutional capital figuring out its on-ramp.

One veteran financier quipped, 'They used to call it funny money. Now it's just money that works faster than theirs.' The old guard is learning a hard lesson: you can't lobby against a protocol that outperforms your entire business model.

Ripple Joins WEF Davos Tokenization Panel

Garlinghouse is once again listed among the public speakers for a WEF session titled “Is Tokenization the Future?” set for Jan. 21 (10:15–11:00 CET). The panel also lists Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters, ECB Governor François Villeroy de Galhau, Eurazeo CEO Valérie Urbain, and moderator Karen Tso.

The session framing is explicitly market-structure oriented, positioning tokenization as something moving beyond pilots and into mainstream financial rails. In the WEF description, organizers write: “Asset tokenization is accelerating quickly, moving from early experiments to full deployment across major asset classes. As adoption expands, it promises new ways for individuals to invest while presenting traditional firms and emerging innovators with complex new dynamics.”

A separate thread of Ripple’s Davos presence may run through “USA House,” a privately organized venue that typically operates in parallel with the official WEF perimeter. Venue materials list Ripple among sponsors of USA House for Davos 2026.

Hedera Brings EcoGuard Global To Davos

Hedera, for its part, is leaning into Davos week as a convening calendar rather than a single stage appearance. In a statement via X, Hedera announced: “Hedera is proud to be an official sponsor of the USA House during the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos, and will contribute to senior-level discussions on digital assets, AI, central banking, and G20 coordination.”

Hedera is also sponsoring Global Blockchain Business Council’s “Blockchain Central Davos,” which runs Jan. 19–22 alongside the WEF meeting, according to Hedera and GBBC materials.

Separately, a Hedera-built carbon-market initiative called EcoGuard Global is scheduled to officially launch in Davos on Jan. 20 at Turmhotel Victoria (3:00–6:00 PM), per EcoGuard’s announcement.

The EcoGuard description pitches an end-to-end infrastructure play around integrity and lifecycle accounting:

“EcoGuard Global is a full carbon lifecycle company building and operating digital infrastructure and managed marketplaces—while actively participating in carbon markets as a developer, investor, and market enabler for high-integrity climate projects… Built on the Hedera network by The Hashgraph Group, EcoGuard Global combines trusted digital infrastructure with market operations, capital, and partnerships to support credible, investable, and scalable carbon markets.”

At press time, HBAR traded at $0.12134.