Is the Jackson Hole central bank retreat now a crypto conference?

There was an actual crypto conference that took place in Jackson Hole between Aug. 17 and Aug. 20, where about 500 guests gathered at the Four Seasons for the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium and listened to executives, investors, and lawmakers discuss digital assets.

Today, on Aug. 27, roughly 120 central bankers, economists, and officials will meet 35 miles north at Jackson Lake Lodge for the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium, under the theme “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.”

SALT and Kraken will fill one ballroom with token businesses, and the Federal Reserve will make payment technology the organizing idea for its most watched policy retreat. One gathering belongs to the industry, and the other belongs to the officials who set rates, supervise banks, and manage public money.

The distance between them, however, now feels remarkably short.

The Kansas City Fed’s Aug. 25 announcement made the overlap between crypto and TradFi official by listing crypto and stablecoins alongside instant payments and other digital payment systems. It said the discussion would reach the future of currency, banking, monetary policy implementation, and global financial integration, placing crypto inside the symposium’s scope through the Fed’s own wording.

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