Introducing CoinDesk’s ‘Consensus at Consensus’ Project

This week, about 12,000 people will congregate in Austin, Texas, for Consensus – the largest and most influential annual conference of the global digital assets community. While sessions with boldface names including Chelsea Manning, Balaji Srinivasan and William Shatner are sure to attract big crowds at the Austin Convention Center and from virtual ticket holders, some of the most important conversations will be taking place offstage.

For Consensus 2023 we at CoinDesk are adding something new and timely: intimate group discussions in which a cross-section of interested parties – including developers, investors, government officials, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits – will seek solutions to the crypto industry’s thorniest challenges. Coinciding with CoinDesk’s 10-year anniversary, it reflects a commitment to use our convening and publishing clout to help the Consensus community move the industry forward in a collaborative and constructive way.

The 11 discussions will attack the most pressing issues challenging the industry today, including the newly urgent subject of regulation, finding the balance between privacy and transparency, how to bring self-custody to the mainstream and the future of crypto media.

Sometime after the event, we will publish the findings of the deliberations in CoinDesk’s first-ever "Consensus @ Consensus Report" intended to point a way forward for an industry that is rebuilding in the wake of a wrenching downturn. We're undertaking this project in collaboration with David Shrier, professor of practice for AI and innovation with Imperial College Business School in London and a founding faculty member of its Centre for Digital Transformation.

Examples of topics include: protecting the privacy rights of users while furthering the goals of law enforcement and regulators; making good on crypto’s early promises of individual empowerment and social inclusion; using the technology to address environmental challenges within and outside the industry; and building and governing new forms of digital communities.

We plan to make the discussions a routine feature of the conference, reinforcing Consensus’ status as the annual gathering of the crypto and blockchain community’s far-flung, disparate stakeholders where they collectively try to find common ground for the year ahead.

Given the many unsolved issues around standards, regulation and technology exposed by last year’s tumultuous downturn in crypto markets, we see this as a vital contribution for CoinDesk and Consensus to the advancement of the technology in the broadest public interest.

Four of the off-stage conversations will be invitation-only and subject to the Chatham House rule, meaning the ideas conveyed in the room may be reported only without attribution. This is meant to give those participants whose institutions hold a tight rein over their public statements a safe space for candid, constructive discussion.

We’re calling these sessions “charrettes,” an architectural term defined by Oxford Languages as “a meeting in which all stakeholders in a project attempt to resolve conflicts and map solutions.” In the spirit of openness that defines the crypto community at its best, during the conference select representatives from the charrettes will take the stage to share and discuss the takeaways from their conversations.

Participants in the charrettes were chosen by CoinDesk’s content staff, drawing, in part, on the recommendations of an advisory council.

Four other discussions, known as brainstorms, will be Town Hall-style sessions open to all Consensus attendees with invited speakers leading the conversations. Three others, known as convenings, will have a hybrid structure, combining roundtable discussions with interactive discussions.

A select group of CoinDesk staff will be assigned to listen to each of these discussions and then summarize and synthesize the takeaways in the "Consensus @ Consensus Report", scheduled for publication on June 5.

It’s a challenging but exciting time for the industry, buffeted like never before by economic, political and technological change. At CoinDesk, we don’t tell people how to address these challenges but believe that by encouraging frank, constructive multi-stakeholder dialogue like this we can help foster a collective effort to do so in the interests of humanity.

Here’s a breakdown of the 11 sessions: