Blockshow Europe 2018 : The Year of Blockchain Education
Many might have the impression that I recently visited Berlin for the tourist attractions or the beers or the sausages.
This is far from the truth even though I will admit I enjoyed enough of them.
The actual reason for the visit was Blockshow Europe 2018, the biggest Blockchain event in our part of the world.
This panel discussion had the title “2018 as the Year of Blockchain Education” and took place at the second stage.
The moderator was Ivan Liljeqvist aka Ivan on Tech aka @ivanli developer and well known Blockchain Youtuber and of course Steemian.
The participants from left to right :
Rick Nassar
Chief Strategy Officer at Blockchain Reactor, Startup Weekend Facilitator, Writer at Irish Tech News
Marco Favia
Business Development Expert & Innovator, Co-Founder at B3 (Blockchain Business Board)
Cal Evans
Founder of Gresham International, Board Member of The British Blockchain Association
Christian Tegge
CEO at DBF Digital Blockchain Foundation, Digital Leader of the World Economic Forum
Here are the main key points brought up in the discussion.
Blockchain has become a buzzword. Hype can be a good thing for mass adoption, but also can be bad. We must understand what problems are solved by Blockchain and how blockchain can be a solution.
Many people indeed start from cryptocurrencies, but we must get away from speculation and quick buck mindset since this is not working anymore. We must focus on real-world applications and use cases.
We must educate people that start companies and Blockchain projects on how businesses work and entrepreneurship. With ICOs they got huge amounts of money and most of the times they cannot handle it. And in the end, you don’t actually need millions of dollars to start a business. There has to be a framework on the funding of Blockchain projects.
We also must educate the decision makers or in other words the politicians and regulators. There is interest in Blockchain technology but they are still learning it. People are fast to use it and they have to catch up. Many argue that regulators are not against Blockchain or cryptos they just don’t get it yet. They want to protect the public from scams and let legit projects contribute to society.
What we lack is a legal framework. The problem is that nowadays technology is borderless and yet every country wants to have its own rules and laws. What the Blockchain community has to do is to educate regulators so that the framework that will come is one that can help the technology and the businesses flourish and not strangle them.
This is, in my opinion, a very important point. Regulation like it or not, will definitely come. It is to our benefit and to the benefit of society to educate or lobby with the decision makers so that this framework will open the road of development rather than bring obstacles to it.
I think it is in our hands.
Be Healthy, Smile and Steem.
PS : @ivanli if this catches your attention, PLEASE , speak slower. If you half your speed , you will double your affectiveness. Thank you.
I can only agree with you, that we must get away from speculation
I think most speculators got burnt and got out.
I hope so😉
So you did actually get smart there ;)))
But uhh...yeah at some point we must actually start to use the blockchains with value otherwise it will be empty speculation over nothing in the end
Yeah , I did get smart, who would expect? :)
Blockchain is innovative technology but it doesn't solve all the problems in the world. We must find which problem it actually solves and provide these sollutions in a way that all people can use them.
Great write up, I was there in Berlin and it was a really great event. Was buzzing with more people and i think next year will be even bigger!
That would be great. And eventually more people will create more interest.
I fully agree with you that the public must be protected from fraud.But can legitimate projects always promote development?
Not sure if I understood the question.
I had in mind that there is a category of people endowed with power who can make certain decisions. But not always these solutions contribute to the prosperity of the enterprise!
Sometimes different people have different criteria of what is useful and what is not.
And many times technologies exist long before people figure practical uses of them...
As long the project is legit they can try whatever they want and you never know ...
As usual, you are right!