Ian Balina's Meetup in Los Angeles

I was checking my twitter fifteen minutes before the start of this event, and was delighted to find out that it was downstairs from where I was. I have only been following Ian on twitter for his insights on crypto for the past three weeks, so this was a delightful surprise.

Ian Balina speaking at The Continental Club in downtown Los Angeles.

This was my very first cryptocurrency meetup event and I had a blast! Ian reserved the entire space for us; so it was an aesthetically pleasing venue to have conversations about the subject matters at hand without having to talk over loud music. He showed up at around 5:30 pm, shook hands with people in attendance, and spent about an hour or so walking around the room like a Star disseminating light/information to orbiting planets wanting to learn how to to achieve their goals. It was very interesting to stand near by and listen to these conversations with a wide variety of people.

A number of people showed up with their friends. I showed up solo. I saw some guy standing around alone and on his phone so I started talking to him. I felt like chatting crypto so I whipped out my Blockfolio and showed him how well my holdings have been recovering after the recent and very painful correction. Turns out that this manner of directness and sharing this kind of personal information works well to dispel social awkwardness.

My notebook with notes from the event.

The second half of the evening was him standing on a platform with a mike answering questions from the audience. I took three pages of notes. Here are some highlights:

Questions from the audience:

Q. What is Ian most bullish on?
A. Lowest cap + highest growth potential: Nebulous, R Chain, Bread, Aion and 0x.

Q. Which five coins would be best to invest in today for long term gain (2,3 years)?
A. R Chain, Icon, Nebulous, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.... "Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is King."

Q. What will change the blockchain the most?
A. Quantum.

Q. Thoughts on EOS?
A. Loves it. Dan Larimer is awesome.

Q. How to best adapt to this fast changing market?
A. Go to crypto conferences.

Q. General advice on getting a career in this crypto space?
A. Find an ICO that fits your skillset and make contact.

My notes do not do the wealth of information being dispensed that evening sufficient justice. Next time Ian comes to town, I am definitely showing up to hear more.

I gave him some of my art as a gift. Two of the pieces can be seen here and here.Here is an excerpt from an email to him where I describe my art:

" I am obsessed with science, math, ancient texts, philosophy and trying to figure out the nature of reality… that all that input eventually gets to be expressed via a series of symbols on paper. My art has the process of creation and eternity in mind. It largely deals with the social history of consciousness, how it replicates, changes and expresses itself over time.

I am currently working on a series that explores the philosophy and concept of currency using cryptocurrencies as the main medium of interest; and the relationship between currency and information. I have only created one piece on this topic, influenced by a recent innovation concerning DNA being able to encode a bitcoin private key and the scientist who cracked the code. My blog post on the topic and the piece created can be read here: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@zetetrahedron369/information-dna-bitcoin-qabalah-and-art

(By the way, please don’t feel obligated to HODL the pieces I gave you. If you feel inspired to give them away as gifts or use them as currency, thats totally legit.)

I really believe in my art and I think they will be of value to individuals of good taste and the philosophically inclined. Fortunately there is a number of people like that in the cryptospace."