Perspectives from Consensus 2019, an Interview with Matt Hrushka
By Kimberly Manning on Altcoin Magazine
My colleague, Matt Hrushka, product marketing manager for XCHNG, just returned from Blockchain Week and Consensus in New York City. I sat down with him to find out what was new in the ever-changing world of blockchain and crypto from the perspective of some of the industry’s most important gatherings.
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Q: 2019 couldn’t be more different in the world of blockchain and related technologies than it was in 2018. Having spent last week in NYC, how were Consensus and the related industry gatherings different this year?
A: Over the years, the landscape of Consensus and blockchain conferences, in general, has been reflective of the price of cryptocurrencies. For example, in 2017, the conference was more or less a circus of sorts. Everyone saw the new technology as a get-rich-quick scheme vs. something that can change how underlying infrastructure and systems work today. Since that bull run in 2017, the landscape of the conference has continued to change; 2018 was similar but diluted.
This year was extremely different from the past two. If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be “enterprise.” Don’t get me wrong, a couple of these companies have been sponsoring or have had presence previously but not all. As I walked through the exhibit hall, the booths of Microsoft, IBM, Deloitte, etc. were everywhere. The peak of cryptocurrency prices and a bear market has allowed many companies to position themselves in regards to adoption and ultimately build their own offering or solution.
Q: What new opportunities are you believing in as you come away from Blockchain Week? What’s hot for blockchain and crypto in 2019?
A: There are a couple of items that Consensus, in general, portrayed that I haven’t seen in previous years.
- First, are the emerging platforms. The common trend I saw during the event was everyone had or is building an underlying platform for adoption. This is similar to the search engine race that occurred between Netscape, Microsoft, etc. in the late 90s. This is no different, everyone is trying to corner the market and be that offering for adoption, whether that is through traditional business or decentralized business offerings.
- Second is the adoption of blockchain tech. Of course, you could argue that this is something that has been a long time coming, but these massive corporations are embracing blockchain and creating offerings around it. It’s validating for anyone within the space that might have started to lose hope in the down market.
- Third is the need for continued education. I was at a booth receiving a live demo from one of the major corporations and someone asked, “Wait, there’s no token? How does it work?” A coin/token is just an incentive at the end of the day, and there are use cases for one and the other but understand that meaningful systems can be on blockchain without having the use of a coin or token. What we’re continuing to see today is the separation of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Taking a step back sometimes is helpful, and doing that right now is important to see how early we are within the space.
Q: You spoke on a panel hosted by the IAB Tech Lab, about coins and tokens. This is an area that has dramatically shifted since the roller coaster of 2018. Can you share some highlights from the panel?
A: The panel was “Coins in Advertising” and had representatives from Blockchain4Media, AdEx, SRAX, and XCHNG. The panel was diverse — we had companies that were not pro-coin/token, hybrids, and full-token platforms. All these companies have different approaches within the market and wouldn’t necessarily be right or wrong in certain regards. What I will ask is “when?” What I mean by that is when will adoption occur? How low of a bar to entry can we make it for non-technical participants? It’s hard enough for any company to adopt a new technology, but what’s even harder is to try to make a financial department shift traditional methods of payment into a token — not to mention the potentially complicated tax implications that come along with such a shift.
A couple of points I made during the panel are as follows:
- Incentives in the form of rewards aren’t new, they’re just on a different platform. I use a specific credit card daily because of the points it will give me as compared to traditional cash purchases. What this provider has done is built a loyalty program. This isn’t any different than blockchain. I’ll choose to do/use something when I get something of value in return for doing so.
- What’s important to consider with blockchain is decentralization. These same systems from all the companies mentioned above can build on traditional databases, but without an incentive or element associated to distribute nodes and validation, they’re useless.
Q: What was the most interesting conversation you had, or presentation you heard, while you were rubbing elbows with the blockchain community last week in NY?
A: The most interesting conversations I encountered were all around government regulation. From a US perspective, the IRS has released specific regulations associated with taxation when it comes to blockchain and crypto, but many items have not been specified or clarified. There is a rumor about new regulation being issued soon, but there is a ton of speculation about what that will entail and when it will be released. If I had to guess, this will most likely be around how taxation will work in regards to forks, airdrops, staking, etc. which weren’t included in the previous guidelines.
To that point, a topic I found really interesting was about validators within delegated proof-of-stake networks. This topic covered issues associated with this type of network structure along with its advantages (speed over decentralization). This presentation covered all of the major platforms current-state and the issues that have occurred with most of them to date, most notably, slashing (removing staked tokens) when a validator misbehaves or is being malicious.
To my points above, these conversations and presentations just go to show the growth happening today and what is being thought about as we discover new protocols or as they are adopted within major platforms. It will pay off to have the right and sound technology vs. being first to the party.
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Thanks so much, Matt, for sharing your perspectives on last week’s events. Here’s to continuing to watch tech and regulatory developments around blockchain in the coming quarters!
