There’s Something About Crypto
Blockchain mania reached a fever pitch in New York City
If there’s one thing that the crypto community has in common, it’s constant traveling. From one airport to the next, you could live your life hopping from one conference to another. One day, you’re in New York and the next, you’re flying to Paris, Amsterdam or Berlin.
So maybe you’re among the rare few who bought BTC when it was $5 and you HODLed. Or, you might’ve gotten lucky with a few ICOs, and now, you’re a so-called “crypto millionaire,” a whale, even. These days, you hop from city to city in a “Satoshi is Female” shirt to distill your wise knowledge to the average conference goer.
Why? Well, there’s something about crypto.
And one thing’s for sure: the blockchain community is flourishing rapidly in every part of the world.
Earlier this month, blockchain took over New York City and it was electrifying. The Fluidity Summit kickstarted the week-long gathering and was followed by the Ethereal Summit, Token Summit, Consensus, and more than three dozen side events.
It was unique, it was insane, but it also felt very familiar.
The crypto community isn’t short of new ideas and protocols to shill, though the stories are always the same: aspirations trump execution. Nothing is real (yet), except for the parties.
For blockchain and crypto to take the moonshot, it’ll need role models it can follow and ideas that are executed, criticized, tested, and improved on. Currently, there is an overwhelming number of ICO companies running around, but we have yet to see a project with real applications that are operational on the blockchain.
The tens of thousands of people who descended onto the Concrete Jungle would unanimously agree that blockchain and crypto will change the world.
There’s no argument.
But getting there, well, that’s the hard part.
Far too many ICO’s have become hedge funds themselves, and we believe that crypto needs to evolve past wild parties and Lamborghinis. Investors need to be more diligent in their investments; advisors need to advise (less), and developers need to build decentralized applications that work.
Siglo at Blockchain Week New York
Impact is the name of the game.
The majority of blockchain project teams believe wholeheartedly that their technology can (and will) fix everything that’s wrong with centralized institutions today. That includes the infrastructures and processes that govern companies, governments, and organizations. And so, blockchain’s promise of decentralization and transparency have become the focal point of nearly every ICO pitch we heard.
Our team arrived in New York just in time for Party on the Block, hosted by Dispatch Labs, at the Williamsburg Hotel. The atmosphere and vibe that lingered in the air were leftover from the two-day Ethereal Summit that just wrapped up where heavy hitters like the World Economic Forum’s Head of Blockchain, Sheila Warren; Blockchain Lead at Microsoft, Yorke Rhodes; EU Parliament Member, Eva Kaili; Sid Coelho-Prabhu, Toshi Product Lead at Coinbase, and more graced the stages of Maspeth’s famous Knockdown Center.
From there, we moved on to Consensus in Midtown Manhattan where we spent the day reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. In between the constant flow of dinners, happy hours, events and late night parties, the Siglo team also got to be involved in intense panels and pitch competitions:
- We spoke at Blockchain (R)evolution about decentralizing the world with ethical blockchain,
- Won the pitch competition at BlockTank, which was hosted by Hydrogen and took place at General Assembly 🚀🚀🚀 (watch the full video below),
- Participated in CryptoHou.se, an intimate crowd of real thought leaders with a particularly interesting discussion about the future of AI on the blockchain and data sovereignty,
- Attended the Crypto Nouveau dinner, organized by our good friends from R1Labs, which gathered top-tier investors and influencers, and
- Joined the Restart conference, a one-day event to recharge the batteries focused on blockchain for good where our advisor Britany Kaiser took the stage to speak about the state of digital asset regulations.
NYC Blockchain week was quite an experience, but the Siglo team is happy to be back in Mexico City, and other parts of the world to double down on bringing our vision to life because, well, how else will we get the remaining 3.5 billion people consistent access to the internet?
P.S. We are only a few weeks away from some major product announcements, so stay tuned!
By: Antoine Delanglade, Business Development at Siglo
