Each year, some of the most powerful and influential people in the world come together to discuss a slew of events at the Bilderberg Meetings, which started in 1954 at the Hotel de Bilderberg in the Netherlands.
These meets are shrouded in secrecy, which has given way to no shortage of conspiracy theories, but one can’t help but to wonder whether or not bitcoin will be a talking point at this year’s meeting, which runs from May 29th through the 1st of June in Copenhagen.
Some of the topics at this year’s meeting includes:
- Is the economic recovery sustainable?
- Who will pay for the demographics?
- Does privacy exist?
- How special is the relationship in intelligence sharing?
- Big shifts in technology and jobs
- The future of democracy and the middle class trap
- China’s political and economic outlook
- The new architecture of the Middle East
- What next for Europe?
- Current events
Specifically, let’s just for a moment focus on the “current events” and “big shifts and technology and jobs” talking points.
No doubt that bitcoin has commanded headlines in recent months. Last year, it was seemingly all about the digital currency’s monumental rise in price, and this year the attention has seemingly fixated on the corporate side of things.
One big exchange collapsed, and a number of big businesses are dabbling in bitcoin acceptance (see Overstock.com and now Dish Network).
With this sort of news, it would difficult to believe that bitcoin wouldn’t be a talking point this year.
Some attendees of this year’s meetings have made public comments on bitcoin, as pointed out on Max Keiser’s website.
One of these attendees is Peter Thiel. Thiel publicly stated last year that bitcoin just might change the world.
“I do think bitcoin is the first one of these that has the potential to do something like that,” he said. “It is worth thinking about money as the bubble that never ends. There is this sort of potential that bitcoin could become this new phenomenon.”
It’s also worth noting that Thiel’s Founder’s Fund led a $2 million funding round into digital currency payments processor BitPay.
Another attendee, Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO and present Chairman), seems to see the potential in the digital currency.
“[Bitcoin] is a remarkable cryptographic achievement,” he said at the Computer History Museum earlier this year. “The ability to create something which is not duplicable in the digital world has enormous value.”
Schmidt said that “The bitcoin architecture, literally the ability to have these ledgers which can’t be replicated, is an amazing advancement,” noting that “Lot’s of people will build businesses on top of that.”
Of course, regardless of what does or does not get discussed at Bilderberg, most of us will never know about it. But we do know that some of the elites in attendance aren’t oblivious to bitcoin and recognize it could be revolutionary. But for every supporter there’s a critic. And bitcoin’s critics are a’plenty.
Do you think bitcoin could be a topic at this year’s Bilderberg?