August 23rd, 2018 at 10:22 pm UTC · 7 min read
This celebration of all things Blockchain was held on August 20-21 at The Palazzo, Las Vegas and brought together more than 1500 attendees. People came from far and wide and over 50 countries were represented. There has never been an event like this held by BlockShow on American soil before and the event marked a beginning of a platform for discussion and exploration of Blockchain that the attendees would like to participate in over and over again.
The CEO of BlockShow Addy Crezee welcomed the attendees to reveal their true selves and said,
“The concept of today’s show is don’t hide behind the masks.”
The conference provided abundant opportunities for participants to focus on real use cases for the use of blockchain technology, in particular how it can be used to improve lives of the people who live on the American continents. A panel discussion was held with the title ‘How Blockchain affects the Americas’ Emerging Economies’.
Participants in the panel put forward their views on how social and economic inclusion can be ushered in particularly with respect to improving access to banking and financial services. Voices heard among the participants expressed their views on everything from the power of blockchain to the nature of cryptocurrencies.
Evan Singh Luthra, CEO of EL Group said, “Blockchain distributes governance.” while Matej Michalko, CEO and President of Decent, said,
“Governments still do not understand blockchain and it will take time until they understand it.”
Taking a stand on the issue of governments and blockchain Manny Fernandez, Angel Investor and CEO of Dreamfunded.com said,
“It has to come from people, the power needs to go back to people, one of the ways to wake up the government is through the people.”
Another interesting panel during the event was “Blockchain 4 Good: Making Every Voice Heard.” Participants on this panel discussed various issues related to participation of women, people of diverse ethnicities, sexual minorities etc. The target of this panel was to talk about equality and how to bring it about in reality using the power of blockchain technology.
Real empowerment needs information. A spirited debate ensued between Jeremy Gardner, Co-founder of Ausum Ventures and Issac Thomas, CEO of VeganNation when Jeremy opened by saying,
“Blockchain for good is generally utter bullsh*t as are most blockchain projects but particularly when it comes with blockchain for good these are typically about consumer facing use cases, the problem with consumer facing use cases is that blockchains aren’t useable yet, we haven’t really figured out infrastructure and scalability and how to make blockchain technology usable for the average consumer.”
In response Issac made a point about the value of Blockchain by saying,
“The grand vision of blockchain is transparency. Transparency will lead to a better world.”
BlockShow Americas 2018 also became the scene of a war of words between Alex Mashinsky and Nouriel Roubini who had an unrestrained go at each other for Cryptobrawl Part 2. In May 2018, the two had crypto’s spiciest exchange where Roubini had said “All this talk of decentralization is just bullsh*t.” and Alex had shot back with “Everything you just said is irrelevant.”
Nouriel is known as Dr. Doom and for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, while Mashinsky is a serial entrepreneur and an early developer of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). Now we are all set for a second unmoderated and unrestrained Crypto Brawl Part 2, which took place at BlockShow Americas powered by Cointelegraph .
Making his stand clear on the debate Mashinsky had already laid the ground by saying,
“This is a guy (Nouriel Roubini) who ‘predicted’ 52 recessions, was right one time and is already predicting the next big collapse. What confuses me is he hates crypto but admits Wall Street is a bubble and it’s going to blow up. Wall Street is ten thousand times bigger than crypto. It’s funny that he’s picking on crypto like we’re the bad guys when we’re the ones actually trying to replace this chaos with some order. This panel is going to be good against evil – you decide which is which.”
Keeping pace with an emerging technology like blockchain is essential for both industry insiders and enthusiasts. In that respect BlockShow Americas 2018 was spectacular. The main stage of the conference featured more than 80 speakers who were experts in their own domain.
Among the speakers at the conference were: Bobby Lee, Co-founder of BTCC China’s first Bitcoin exchange and board member of the Bitcoin foundation, Nouriel Roubini, CEO of Roubini Macro Associates and Professor of Economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Mike Butcher, Editor-At-Large TechCrunch (awarded the MBE at the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2016), Johanna Masaka, CEO of Global Situation Room (former White House Press Advance for President Barack Obama), and Alex Mashinsky, Founder of the Celsius Network, Serial Entrepreneur, Venture Investor as well as Tech Innovator.
Among the speakers was Bobby Lee, Founder of BTCC, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in China talked about freedom with a context to money. He said,
“We’ve had freedom of money since 2009. Bitcoin is the true representation of freedom of money. The concept of bitcoin is applicable to all the people around the world. Anything tied to your identity is not really yours Bitcoin is the ultimate hard currency. Real freedom needs freedom of money.”
Says Bobby Lee,
“Information is the ownership. With crypto you have the full ownership.”
Adding to his voice in agreement Ivica Simatovic who also spoke had this to say,
“Internet for information, blockchain for value.”
Attendees could also benefit from the exhibition hall which featured Ginco – A Universal Asset Hub in the digital currency ecosystem, Traceto.io , ASQ protocol Celsius – A wallet that pays back, Mir Coin – A cryptocurrency in everyday life, Gozo – Empowering the travel industry with Blockchain, Wattle Wallet – An extended digital currency wallet with instant access to trading and exchange, X-Block – The first global blockchain 4.0 based on fog computing and AID Coin – Blockchain based solution that brings back trust to the charity sector.
These companies showcased the best their best developments and projects.
Great events like this leave an impression on all those who attend but it also takes a lot to make them happen. Thankfully BlockShow has valuable partners that made the event a success that it was. Decent, provider of an advanced blockchain ecosystem, ICObench, an ICO rating provider, CryptoFriends, a group of professionals with an exclusive network of smart connections throughout the crypto community and SV Insight, Media and Blockchain connect conference organiser were among the main partners.
Media too played its part in providing excellent coverage and over 200 journalists were present. Noted journalists like Rachel Wolfson of Forbes and Craig S. Smith of New York Times were among the speakers at the main stage. BlockShow’s media partners included Crunchbase, amTV, Bitcoin.com, NEWSBTC, Investing.com who did a great job on coverage of the event. Talking about the success of the event Addy Creeze remarked,
“What happens in BlockShow, stays in Blockchain.”
BlockShow is all about bringing the world together, whether it is East or West. In that spirit the conference would be moving to Singapore as a part of the Asia Blockchain Week at the Marina Bay Sands hotel between November 27 – December 1, 2018. The discussion on Blockchain is ongoing and kept alive. Let’s start talking.