09-29, 10:30–11:00 (Europe/Berlin), Main Stage
The age of hydrocarbons has been a remarkable success story of humanity. It provided the cheap and abundant energy that has literally powered the growth and development of global civilization as we know it. By now, however, the negative environmental consequences ultimately culminating in climate change are too material to ignore. How to decarbonize the global economy without jeopardizing wealth and prosperity is the wicked global challenge that nobody seems to find answers to. We have witnessed the disastrous consequences and costs of top-down interventionism by bureaucrats over the past 50 years - achieving neither decarbonization nor wealth preservation nor growth. It leaves people rightfully disenfranchised and revolting. However, a new paradigm offers hope: Bitcoin. Bitcoin happens to have multiple properties that hold the promise of providing the long-term climate-positive outcomes, all while achieving growth and prosperity through investment, the forces of the free market and human ingenuity. Bitcoin is the Plan B for our Planet A.
This talk will be divided into multiple parts starting with a brief and pragmatic historic overview on climate change, and how science, motives and vested interests have shaped the dominant narratives on climate change today. Truth and tales will be dissected and misassumptions that are foundational to current institutional climate action will be discussed - including, why those actions are bound to fail and will remain nothing but ineffective and costly.
This sets the stage to discuss why Bitcoin offers such an integrated, systemic and elegant solution to the climate change challenge without jeopardizing societal growth ambition and prosperity. It will close with an outlook why and how a Bitcoin strategy will be the competitive advantage for capital allocators in the climate-tech venture space.
Since discovering Bitcoin in 2016, Harald Rauter is focusing on developing the investment case for Bitcoin as a mechanism for achieving superior economic- and environmental returns. Harald Rauter advises ESG-sensitive capital pools like foundations, HNWI and enterprises in developing tailored investment strategies that leverage Bitcoin’s unlocking potential for higher risk-adjusted returns while simultaneously achieving unrivaled CO2e emission reduction. For the past 10 years he has been an investor and portfolio manager for climate-positive investments both in the public- as well the private sector. Harald Rauter holds a PhD in Natural Sciences from ETH Zürich and a masters degree in Economics from the Vienna University of Economics.