Paris Blockchain Summit
by Antoine Guesry
“ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM MAGIC.” (Sir Arthur C. Clarke)
This past weekend in Paris we made some magic! We were back in my hometown for an intense and extraordinary weekend with my bro Kipras Vazalinskas.
I arrived on Thursday to meet Kipras who co-organised the event with me to prepare the venue and plan the details of the summit.
“The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42.” ( “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Douglas Adams )
We started our French journey at 42 (School), a private, nonprofit and tuition-free computer programming school created and funded by French billionaire Xavier Niel. A truly inspirational place for us who have the vision & resolve to “edutain”, to educate and entertain, and share our knowledge and give back to society.
From Friday afternoon to late into Saturday evening we spent in this fabulous school, Temple Ama, and Kube Hotel, talking mingling, meeting and connecting around everything blockchain, AI and crypto.
Kevin Primicerio, the president of 42 entrepreneurs, gave a provocative talk entitled, “Blockchain or Bullshit?” Where he gave us insight into investment tools and strategies in the crypto space.
Lucas Klocanas & Brian O’Hagan from Coinhouse, ex-La Maison du Bitcoin, pioneers in the space in France, talked about the very pertinent topic of, “How the crypto narrative is shaping adoption.”
Maria Woncisz country manager — Europe for Luno gave a fascinating talk about “The evolution of money”, where she discussed macro factors driving adoption and shared some interesting statistics about the French crypto market.
Bernard Molle of BTU Protocol discussed the myriad of use cases for Blockchain, giving the example of the impact of peer to peer reservation protocol on the internet and its monetisation.
Lively discussions ensued during apéro and SwissBorg co-founder Anthony Lesoismier gave an interview about SwissBorg’s Swarm Intelligence Program to Langue De Geek, a Parisian crypto youtube channel.
Watch Anthony’s Interview here: https://lnkd.in/d2fHhnZ
A wonderful dinner rocked by Sound odyssey of OUM.K Live Sitar & Electro-Acoustic Set where we continued the conversation.
With the yellow vests movement, Paris showed us her dark face, when no riots, policemen & tanks, the streets of the megalopolis were empty. Only two underground lines were operating. Therefore some people, even speakers, couldn’t attend our event. Any? No! Because irreducible Blockchainers still resists the invader and met in the Jungle of Kube.
We started our Jungle journey entirely isolated from the outside bustle with Yoga & Collective meditation. It strengthened the group’s cohesion and gave a feeling of confidence and sharing throughout the debate. (One of the pillars and mission of BU)
On Saturday Cyrus Fazel, SwissBorg’s founder spoke about the importance of the sense of community to the crypto and blockchain space. When we want to disrupt the traditional world of finance we need to replace it with the community and each other. That is the original disruptive message of crypto.
Then we spent quite some time having intense discussions on Tokenomics during the Roundtable moderated by Ton Van’t Noordende, CEO of 01 Ventures.
One of the most interesting talks was given by Rand Hindi of Snips, “Why privacy is necessary for an open society.” He started with an experiment asking the audience to take out their phone and share their last conversation with the person sitting next to them, bringing home the fact that we cherish our privacy. Privacy is about SAFETY, FREEDOM & INNOVATION, which comes from diversity.
We closed the talks with Taqiyeddine Easeh & Frederic Ocana a.k.a. Mr Crypto.
After some Reiki Massage, we continue our discussions around a good dinner and lush music. The conversations were deep and thought-provoking, meetups and summits like the one we just had in Paris are essential especially in these bearish times to help motivate all of us in the community and allow us to re-focus on the real reasons we have embraced this new technology and space.
I believe that blockchain technology, in the long run, will give control to the masses. I want to help build a community and attract people to my events to contribute to a better world where we all find our fit and utility, where we achieve a balanced lifestyle, get rid of unnecessary frictions, and hold fast to the idea that sharing is caring.
Join our community on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn & Telegram!
