North American Bitcoin Conference (Day 2)

Wow, I’m still absorbing all of the amazing content I heard over the last two days here. The conference was jam packed with so many speakers and so much content, it could easily have run for four days (maybe next year they will decide to extend it).

Today’s list of A-list speakers included founders and top members from some of the major blockchain platforms, including Ark, Decred, RSK (aka “Root Stock”), Swarm, Augur, etc. They were all interesting talks going over what the platforms are used for, different challenges they have faced, and their future plans. Unfortunately, one of the most anticipated speakers of the day, Brock Pierce of Blockchain Capital (and board member of the Bitcoin Foundation), cancelled at the last minute due to sickness and “fighting fires”.

With that, I’d like to go ahead and highlight a few of the more interesting presentations, stories, and key points made from the day.

Carlos Domingo (founder of Spice VC and Securitize) made the case that the next ICO wave will be tokenized securities. What he means by “tokenized securities” is that:

• Any company can offer equity, debt, dividends in the form of tokens
• Any fund (VC/hedge/private equity) can offer liquidity in the form of tokens
• Any asset can offer full or partial ownership, revenue shares, etc, in the form of tokens

In summary, these are all new, yet unimagined variations of ownership made possible by smart contracts. It is a trillion dollar market opportunity.

On that note, it is very apparent that venture money is quickly moving into the blockchain space, with quite a few VCs in attendance from both the US and abroad. Their industry is quickly being disrupted by the new, more liquid funding model of the ICO (enabled by tokens and smart contracts), so they are scrambling to adapt in order to stay relevant.

I was happy to finally see bitcoin pioneer, Charlie Shrem, in person. He recounted some early bitcoin memories, like when someone sent him 10,000 bitcoin over IRC to show him how bitcoin worked (bitcoin was worth a few pennies at the time). Or later on when he and some of the other bitcoin pioneers routinely played poker for pots of 20 bitcoin. It’s pretty crazy thinking about that now, with the price of a single bitcoin well above $12,000 today.

Charlie told the story of his scheduled speaking appearance at the 2014 North American Bitcoin Conference almost 3 years ago to this day. When it was his turn to go on stage, no one could find him. Now if you’ve seen the Netflix documentary, “Banking on Bitcoin”, you would know that this is the day he was arrested at the airport by the authorities for running the BitInstant exchange. He was charged with aiding and abetting the operation of an unlicensed money-transmitting business related to the silk road marketplace (though he had nothing to do with silk road himself). As Charlie put it, “the first person to walk through the door always gets shot, and then everyone else can come through.”

Another speaker I enjoyed seeing in person was Jeremy Gardner, founder of Augur, who also went over some notable historical events, like Mt. Gox. It’s his opinion that the Mt. Gox meltdown in 2014 may have actually been a blessing in disguise for the blockchain industry. Yes, it caused a huge multi-year bear market for bitcoin, but it actually delayed banks from getting involved for a few more years (and the centralization that bank investment brings). It also allowed for more innovation on the tech side to make blockchain platforms more stable before hitting the “prime time” market.

On the other hand, Jeremy lamented that blockchains today have not reached the potential everyone had envisioned back in 2014. For example, there is still not a single blockchain technology we rely on in our daily lives… yet.

To rectify this, Jeremy made the following call to action to everyone in the audience:

• Stop trading, start investing
• Invest in teams and technology over marketing
• Stop trolling
• Start building
• Learn to code
• JOIN A STARTUP
• Mentor a promising blockchainer
• Donate some of those gains to blockchain education and advocacy groups

What I took from this is that we need more people involved (in any capacity, either through time or money) to make the blockchain dream a reality for the world. We definitely have some exciting times ahead of us.