CityLab Daily: Mayors Talk Crypto at CityLab 2022
Also inside: Ukrainian mayors on Russia’s invasion, and London’s secret fix for air pollution.
Sean Audain, Salla Eckhardt and Linda Poon participate in the “Cities and the Metaverse” panel at the CityLab conference in Amsterdam on Oct. 11, 2002.
Photographer: Sarah Holder/Bloomberg
Blockchain technology and the metaverse have gotten plenty of attention from the private sector — but can they actually be useful for local government? Those were chief among the topics tackled during panel discussions at day two of the CityLab summit in Amsterdam, which drew leaders from dozens of global cities on Tuesday.
Not everyone’s convinced that crypto will transform cities. Tonantzin Carmona, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, expressed skepticism and discussed the importance of taking a human-centered approach to adoption. Any eventual upsides will need to be balanced against risks, she said, such as crypto mining’s environmental impact.