Today kicks off the annual forum in Davos. This lavish gathering in the snowy mountains of Switzerland brings together the world's most wealthy and famous, to try and tackle the problem of inequality.

Ten years ago, in the throes of the financial crisis, the theme for the Davos convention was "what must industry do to prevent broad social backlash?"

Since then, the world's most fortunate have seen their fortunes soar even though global GDP and average working wages have remained stagnant. This interactive chart on Bloomberg tells quite a tale.

Last year I had the pleasure of attending this event and as a crypto enthusiast, I was quite pleased to see a vibrant showing of activists and blockchain builders. On the main stage of the World Economic Forum, however, the attitude towards distributed ledger technologies was more tepid.

This year there will be a panel called Building a Sustainable Crypto-Architecture, which is scheduled for tomorrow at 10:00 AM CET. This will be particularly interesting as it pits known bitcoin skeptics Gillian Tett from the Financial Times and Ken Rogoff from Harvard against the founders of Circle (the Goldman Sachs backed owners of Poloniex Exchange) and BitPesa.

Traditional Markets

The clock ticks slowly on our two headline political snafus. In an apparent response to the weak Chinese GDP data, Xi Jinping has urged for calm and warned of financial risks. 

Never missing an opportunity to gain the upper hand, President Trump has also responded to the Chinese figures.

Needless to say, global stocks are playing defense today. The China 50 is leading the pack with modest declines of 1.36%.

Ten Year Challange

If you're not familiar, the 10-year challenge is a new internet fad that has people posting a pic of themselves 10 years ago next to a current glamour shot. Though many have criticized this as just another excuse to post selfies, I thought it'd be fun to look at a few markets. :)

As far as the stocks are concerned the last 10 years have been stunning. Here's a quick reminder of what the Dow Jones looked like in 2009 Vs today.

Eat your heart out Reese Witherspoon!!

As far as Emerging Markets are concerned, time was not as good to them as it was in the USA and other developed economies. There have been some good times and some bad but overall is aging nicely. Kind of like Morgan Freeman.

Gold was in the thralls of a massive bull run in 2009. Since its peak in 2011 though, it's looking more like Soulja Boy's Headband. 

Crude oil looks exactly the same. Just like Mariah Carey.

King Dollar had just one radical change. For better or worse depends on your personal politics and point of view, kind of like the White House.

Chart credits for this segment go to tradingview.com. 

What about Crypto??

10 years ago, bitcoin was just two weeks old. So we can easily compare this one to Jordan Pickford who's gone from a punk child to a full-blown superstar stud. 

Kidding aside, we have an entire new emerging and thriving industry now that's grown up around bitcoin and blockchain.