WEF Head of Blockchain Sheila Warren: ‘This Tech Can Solve the Trust Crisis’

Head of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Sheila Warren, claims that blockchain could be a solution to the worsening trust crisis globally. Warren made her comments during an interview with Cointelegraph on May 31.

During the interview, Warren claimed that public trust towards governments, banks, media and institutions, namely in the U.S., is “rapidly eroding.” She then noted that she thinks that blockchain, if used correctly, can be a solution to this problem:

“This technology could provide access to information that could enable third parties or other groups to actually come in and conduct audits of what is happening. And I actually think that could build faith back in institutions.”

Warren then continued explaining that she believes the implementation of such auditable systems would be laborious but being able to prove the fairness of public processes and the authenticity of various media would bring vast benefits. She also said that — if not solved — the trust crisis she referenced will have far reaching consequences:

“In my opinion that [erosion of public trust] is one of the biggest crises we face. Because you’re going to rapidly move towards anarchy and that is a deep, deep problem.”

Warren also admitted that had owned some bitcoin (BTC) “almost as a joke,” but she did not make the connection between bitcoin and blockchain for quite some time and it wasn’t until later that he learned about blockchain. She noted:

“It took about another three years from when we first bought bitcoin for me to understand what blockchain was.”

Warren also pointed out that the six councils recently formed by the WEF, dedicated to the fourth industrial revolution — which are also dedicated to blockchain technology — are also meant to be a trusted place for world leaders to experiment and share their challenges, concerns and success stories involving technology.

At the beginning of the current month, news broke that the WEF has teamed up with over 100 global supply chain and logistics leaders to standardize blockchain apps in the industry.