MY FIRST BLOCKCHAIN CONFERENCE

What I learned after going to Malta Blockchain Summit

Three days ago I got back from Malta — one small piece of land in the middle of the Mediterranean. This sunny island with lovely people, warm weather that hosts vacation tourists during the summer and conference such during the other time of the year.

The reason for me to go there is exactly a conference — Malta Blockchain Summit. The event gathered 8,500 people from all around the world to discuss blockchain technology and its application and how to make the world a better place (and get rich while doing this). And as I don’t feel quite confident in the topic, I decided to focus my time to watch, observe and ask questions, no matter how stupid they may sound.

During these 2 days of discussions with different blockchain companies and service companies that work in the blockchain spectrum, I managed to talk to quite a lot of people and discuss their goals and vision about blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and trust. So here are my key takeaways:

There were 2 types of people at the conference — value investors and speculators

 And I don’t mean only be people who invest their fiat money in different cryptocurrencies. This could be seen in the way people talk about their companies and why they were created and the very core reason people decided to dedicate their time and energy and become part of the blockchain community. Even John McAfee is stating it quite strongly in his speech (here) — “some here are here to get rich, and some want to become free individuals”. 

Don’t get me wrong — I do believe people need to be rewarded accordingly to their contribution and when deserved, become filthy rich and buy however Lambos they want. But I don’t believe in speculations for personal benefit with the cost of cheating the system, which in this case is all the people who really believe that the technology can lead to а change in our society.

The “build it and they’ll come” mentality is still there 

It is just transformed to “ICO it and it will happen”. Some people are preparing to make ICO but have no idea about the real business application of their solution and how the market will react to it. Yes, it is blockchain and yes, it is quite awesome, but people won’t be using it just because of this. 

Of course, this was not always the case — I saw some awesome solutions that have practical application, proven use cases, and client base enough to show a product-market-fit.

The blockchain is the still a hype

But as it happened with the AI hype and the VR/AR hype, things will cool down and the meaningless projects will die only to leave space for real-life application of the technology that will make something really groundbreaking. And the judge of that will only be the market and people who will decide where to put their money and trust in. 

By accident, I managed to have a dinner with an awesome individual — Scott Stornetta, or also known as “the founding father of blockchain”, which is also a partner at the blockchain-focused firm Yugen Partners (this guy is in blockchain since 1991 and knows his stuff). After asking him the questions “How do you decide the projects you invest in?”, he gave me their main formula — team and practical application. Nothing different than the traditional VC mentality as blockchain is only a new technology among the whole tech spectrum.

By standing on the foundation of trust, the blockchain community is lacking much of it

Maybe its due to the fact that 80% of all ICOs in 2017 were scams even though in its foundation the technology is secured. Talking to different individuals, I heard that this is a huge issue and that some people try to differentiate from the crowd as of fear that people will connect him with a shady business like many others in the sector. And unless shady ICOs and businesses are driven out of the space, things won’t look better.

It is full of smart and confident people

Many of them have already succeeded in building one or more ventures in traditional businesses and look in the technology as a real solution to unsolved until now problems. At these people showed me their contagious passion, vision for the future and how they will take an active part in forging it. And as I was thinking loudly with a new friend at the closing party of the event, I am thrilled to see what will come out of this whole group of enthusiastic people and their driving force.

Malta Blockchain Summit was a conference that showed me that blockchain is a growing technology that is here to stay. Looking forward to all the practical applications it will have in energy, education, voting, eGovernance, Public Administration, Supply chain, Gaming, Transportation, science, and everyday life.

I wrote this article after participating on Malta Blockchain Summit (1–2 November 2018). Connect with me at LinkedIn and tell me what you think.