Three Takehomes from Blockchain Week
A booming industry demonstrates maturity in 2018
Last week Cryptonomos joined much of the world’s crypto community at Blockchain Week in New York City, which included the large Consensus and Ethereal conferences as well as a wide variety of other crypto events, meetups, parties, and gatherings.
Cryptonomos hosted a private dinner party that included fascinating insights into the current legal environment courtesy of all-star crypto lawyer, Gordon Einstein, and that offered exciting introductions into some of the leading ICOs of 2018, including transformative education platform, Tutellus, and the striking market changing potential behind CGI blockchain protocol, Leonardo Render. Photos of the event can be seen here.
We were struck by three principal observations from the week:
Boom Times
An inescapable observation from the week was the fact that the industry is booming. An estimated 8,500 people attended Consensus, when the conference itself originally advertised a “mere” 4,500 attendees. While this over-capacity created some pretty atrocious lines and a severe paucity of seating, it was a palpable demonstration of the general enthusiasm permeating the space.
A Maturing Space
The maturity of the industry was another interesting factor. While there was no shortage of new projects — there was in fact a dizzying, almost uncountable array of original blockchain ideas on display (and not a few rehashed ones too!) — there was also a large number of projects that were showing real confidence in expanding their influence. Many projects that ICOd in 2017 or earlier were back in the thick of it demonstrating notable expansion to their businesses. There were also alternative blockchain protocols flexing real muscle. The NEM foundation for example was showing off a variety of eye-catching new projects that are moving on to its blockchain and eschewing the more traditional ICO protocols like Ethereum. Tutellus was one example, and at a press conference their team discussed the interesting advantages that NEM offers.
Talent and Institutional Players on Display
The talent flooding into the crypto industry is notable, as is the presence of big players. While Consensus has always drawn big traditional finance and tech sponsors, there was no sense of these companies merely dipping their toes or entering the space in stealth in 2018 — they’re coming in boots and all. Big players are ramping up their blockchain initiatives and more and more very talented people are leveraging their careers into the space.
While employees of some of the largest banks and hedge funds were often there in a “personal capacity,” the quiet conversations were overwhelmingly of when, not if...
The institutional investors seem to be coming.
