The new managing director of the BSV Association (BSVA), Ásgeir Oskarsson, made the case for how blockchain technology can progress the green energy transition and improve trust in business and government while speaking on a Financial Times (FT) panel at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2025.
During the January 22 event, Oskarsson emphasized that blockchain, with its ability to streamline processes and introduce innovative business models, can help accelerate the energy transition and strengthen local digital economies for global growth.
“Strong policy frameworks and collaborative efforts between governments, businesses, and innovators are essential to create an environment where these technologies can thrive,” said Oskarsson. “By leveraging blockchain and other cutting-edge technologies, we can foster trust, enhance transparency, and promote accountability while driving global innovation.”
Óskarsson was one of several representatives of the BSV blockchain ecosystem to speak at the WEF 2025, a four-day event held in Davos, Switzerland, which brought together global leaders, innovators, and policymakers to shape global, regional, and industry agendas, including showcasing the transformative potential of technology for businesses worldwide.
During three days of panel discussions hosted by the FT, the proponents of the BSV blockchain discussed topics ranging from green energy transition to blockchain’s role in financial services.
Óskarsson, who was announced by the BSVA—the stewardship organization of the BSV blockchain—on February 1 as its new Managing Director, participated in a panel titled ‘A critical moment: Accelerating the energy transition – technology, policy, and financial mechanisms,’ alongside Kim Hedegaard, CEO of Power-to-X (PtX) Topsoe and Vaishali Nigam Sinha, Co-Founder of ReNew.
The panel focused on the importance of technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) in driving scalability, efficiency, and energy conservation.
Blockchain scalability and sustainability
When discussing how technology can play its role as part of the solution to green energy transition, Óskarsson underscored how different innovative tech can work in concert to the benefit of business and government:
“Look at artificial intelligence, look at blockchain technology… Internet of Things, I think the beauty of it is that, when these three technologies come together, we can create not only innovative financial models or innovative business models for the companies running them, but you can actually make a massive difference on a local and global scale.”
Despite this optimistic outlook, certain technologies—AI and blockchain in particular—have been accused of being part of the problem when it comes to energy usage. For example, the energy consumption of BTC alone has been estimated at roughly equivalent to the energy consumption of Sweden and Thailand, while it’s estimated that the AI language model ChatGPT4 consumes enough energy annually to power over 40,000 United States households for a year or charge every electric vehicle in the U.S. twice.
When asked whether the advantages that AI and blockchain offer can offset their environmental dangers and power drainage, Óskarsson argued that “when you look at energy usage, what you should look at is also what you get for it, what is the output that you get for the energy usage?”
He suggested that, compared to the more recent surge in AI, blockchain has been around for a while, and as such, its energy usage and carbon footprint have been the source of much debate and discussion, “so, at this point, the sector is very much focused on sustainability.”
“At BSV blockchain, we’re very much focused on scalability and providing as much output as possible for as little energy usage as possible,” said Óskarsson.
He suggested that the solution needs to be a combination of initiative from the businesses themselves and a strong regulatory drive. Giving the example of the European Union, he pointed out that:
“In the EU, there’s very strict regulatory principle regarding blockchain. You need to provide your objective sustainability data that’s going to roll out in the next few months. That will give a lot of transparency and more trust and awareness about the situation. So, yes, there is energy usage, as there is with everything we do in life, but I think we should also look at what the output is.”
Specifically, he suggested that BSV can provide the scalability (output) that merits the energy input, and in this regard, there is some data to back up Óskarsson’s claim. In 2021, MNP, one of Canada’s largest professional accounting and business advisory service firms, found the BSV blockchain to be the most energy-efficient due to its unbounded transaction processing capacity.
As the panel progressed, the discussion naturally centered around the grey cloud that has formed over the campaign for energy transition, in the form of the success and growth in popularity of a ‘Trumpian’ antipathy toward green projects.
Panel host and Senior Business Writer at the FT, Andrew Hill, asked whether the new Trump administration’s bullish attitude to technology and innovation may actually lead to developments that can help offset some of its antipathy to green energy policy.
On this point, Óskarsson was keen to note the importance of bottom-up change rather than focusing on the top-down impact.
“I always welcome innovation… but I would like to emphasize, coming back to the global role or role model, blockchain empowers individuals, so it has strong global role but also a local focus,” he said. “So, I think we need global collaboration, but we also need these local initiatives where innovation can thrive, that’s regardless of who’s at the top.”
The panel concluded on a more optimistic note regarding the technological future and the hopes of transitioning to a green economy. The new BSVA head underscored how blockchain can help restore trust in some processes under discussion at both a business and governmental level.
“We have this beautiful technology that’s currently being used for perhaps different reasons than what it could be. For example, blockchain is associated with cryptocurrency, but blockchain can be a beautiful underlying technology which could help with reforestation, with carbon offset, with providing trust and transparency,” said Óskarsson.
“This is what it comes back to, there’s a trust factor that seems to be missing at the moment in the world… I believe technology can recreate that trust, but it needs to be initiated by business, by government. The technology is there; it’s all about awareness and accelerating that mindset by showcasing small successes and then building that out.”
BSV thought leadership
Also representing the BSV blockchain ecosystem at WEF were Richard Baker, founder and CEO of Tokenovate and BSVA board member, and Aleksander Góra, Head of Strategic Partnerships at BSVA.
Baker participated in an FT roundtable on day two of the event, with his discussion centered on blockchain and AI in financial services. The discussion highlighted the need to align technology transformation with data standards, digitization, and automation, supported by a culture of change.
In particular, it addressed the challenges and opportunities of hybrid IT architectures, merging legacy systems with new technologies, and the responsibility tech businesses have to drive future transformation.
“Early knowledge sharing, establishing a North Star, and engaging stakeholders are essential for ensuring the successful adoption of AI and blockchain, particularly in areas such as agreeing on data standards and sources, as well as rights and permissions before training models,” said Baker. “By combining these technologies, there lies a significant opportunity for cost transformation and product and customer experience enhancements across various areas, including fraud detection, credit scoring, trade processing, and trade reconciliation.”
Meanwhile, on day three in Davos, Góra was part of an in-depth panel discussion on ‘The Power of Blockchain for Business Resilience‘ alongside Rishi Khosla, CEO of OakNorth, Casper Klynge, VP and Head of Government Affairs at Zscaler, and Noor Sweid, Founder and MD of Global Ventures.
Góra provided insights into the transformative potential of blockchain technology across various sectors while echoing some of his new Managing Director’s comments from the previous day on sustainability.
“The scalability and energy efficiency of BSV blockchain position it as a leading solution for businesses looking to harness the power of blockchain technology,” said Góra. “Looking ahead, we see blockchain adoption expanding beyond financial services, fundamentally reshaping how organizations across sectors manage data, streamline processes, and bolster trust.”
Watch: Unpacking Bitcoin sustainability at the London Blockchain Conference
title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen=””>
Source: https://coingeek.com/wef-2025-transitioning-to-green-energy-with-bsv-blockchain/