The Blockchain Space Society Event, Berlin

It is surely a sign of the times that writing about an event six days after it has passed feels… wrong? I started writing this three days ago, and even then it seemed wrong. Because life is so fast now. It used to be that things happened, someone wrote about it, and then we read about it the following day. Or weekend. Or in an article later in a magazine or journal. Now with smartphones and technology, if it’s not livestreamed, linked with the event, and written about within hours, it feels like old news. Well, here’s my vote for old news!

The slow news movement
Just as we have a slow food movement, I think we should have a slow news movement. Not so slow that it’s no longer relevant (which, to be fair, with the rate of change in technology these days is a real issue), but just slow enough for life. Slow enough to stay late at the gig, go home, waste a day, go to work a for a day, and then write about it the following day. Or the day after. Or the day after that. Slow enough to forget some things that were said and let others compost.

The place
C-Base in Berlin. Cool venue. I’ve taken pictures. Unfortunately, while I do enjoy taking photos (as long as it doesn’t interfere with my actually ‘being’ there), due to my lack of care and attention to things like mode and holding the camera steady, I am a fuzzy picture taker. Think of me as an impressionist of modern times.

The Event
The Blockchain Space Society Event, Berlin on September 18th, 2017. Hosted by MetaMind Evolution.

The Speakers
I’m writing this as a technochucklehead, so I had no idea who these guys were before. I’m attending all these meetups with the goal of spiral learning - bit by bit I’ll learn who’s who and what’s what - hopefully. Although sometimes I come out at the end of an evening with no clear idea of what people were talking about as tech guys (still mostly guys – both on stage and in the audience) don’t always have the best delivery! Hence, I’ll say ‘seems to be’ rather than ‘is’ – check things out yourself!

Joel Dietz, founder of SWARM was the moderator. I can’t honestly explain what Swarm does. Not sure if it’s because I waited too long to write this - which blows my slow news argument – or whether I just didn’t get it. It’s related to real assets and legal contacts on the blockchain. I’ve looked it up and it seem to be a way to invest in real things without actually having those real things. Hmm. https://swarm.fund/how-swarm-works

Martin Köppelmann is the founder of GNOSIS. I’d heard of Gnosis before and had already bought €5 worth just because I liked the name. There are worse ways to spend a fiver! It’s a blockchain prediction market. Or betting platform. Depends on how you want to look at it. He reframed insurance as a bet- you’re betting you will have a problem in the future, the insurer is betting you won’t. It’s based (currently) on Ethereum and you can create your own bets. Check it out https://gnosis.pm Unfortunately he didn’t have time to talk about Circles - a universal basic income project he’s working on. https://ourbasicincome.wordpress.com/author/koeppelmann/

Pavlo Tanasyuk from the SpaceBIT foundation was the third speaker. He described it as a sort of decentralised space agency. It aims both to allow existing space companies to communicate with each other, and to enable individuals to invest in space programmes. Apparently there’s a liquidity problem in this area as you have to wait a long time for return on investment. Figures. http://www.spacebitfoundation.com

As usual, the most interesting discussions are generated by the audience. Blockchain was discussed as not being just a tech phenomenon; it’s also a social one. As such, investing in crypto can be seen as ‘participating in a mental share of the new way of the world’ (Joel Dietz). He had good advice about investing: invest just enough so you can watch it drop by 50% and it doesn’t disturb you. It’s a mental shift as much as anything else – don’t invest your sanity! Wise words.