Today I went to a Blockchain conference in the most populated country on earth.
One thing that was abundantly clear is that cryptocurrencies are in their infancy.
Don’t let the hype around price fool you. This thing is only getting started.
Crypto bug
I arrived on Indian soil from London (via Frankfurt) at 1.30am Monday morning. By the time I’d gone through immigration, collected baggage, caught a cab and arrived at the family home it was 5am.
7am, two hours later I was up. I knew I would be up. I’d caught the crypto bug a few years back and it’s been difficult to shake ever since. Usually it wakes me to check the market prices. This time the symptoms were more serious. I was up, showering and getting dressed to leave the house.
You see, I’d signed up for an event that was a one hour drive away. Tired and jet-lagged I was determined to go. As the event was blockchaincon.io. It started at 10am. I was determined and excited to gauge the temperature of the cryptocurrency landscape in India.
How did I end up here?
I guess it was kismat.
I had booked this trip to visit family in India over Christmas. It was a ‘set-and-forget’ decision. It wasn’t until two days before my flight that I’d put my mind towards the journey at hand.
On a whim I decided to look into whether there were any cryptocurrency events happening in Delhi during my time over here. That’s when I found out about the Conference via a search on Meetup.com.
I had no idea what to expect at the Blockchaincon. In all honesty I had no idea whether I’d get in. I signed up on Meetup however I wasn’t sure whether my registration had gone through. I was going to go regardless. I took my little bro with me and we made our way to ‘CP’, Connaught Place by Metro.
Conference Day 1
As you can see, Blockchaincon had put together an impressive array of Speakers. From lawyers to entrepreneurs to developers in the space. Day 1’s agenda was focused on ICOs.
I’m currently skeptical about ICOs. As a tool I think it has huge potential. However currently it is being used as a bit of a money grab. Overall I think the speakers in the conference struck the right tone on ICOs. There were also some interesting panel debates on the issue and on the future on the blockchain in general.
A word banded around a lot at this conference was ‘DLT’, Distributed Ledger Technology. I confess I hadn't ever heard the blockchain described so frequently in those terms before coming to Blockchaincon. I find it interesting the different ways people use to describe ostensibly the same thing... it's all bitcoin to me!
In the break I got talking to a few people. I wore a steemit t-shirt on the first day and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of people that recognised the new logo and came up to me and asked “Are you from Steemit?”
Er... no but I blog on there... And naturally the conversations flowed into a discussion about Steem.
It was mainly the younger guys approaching me. So it was heartening to see that Steemit has an appeal to a younger generation. Some like @beginnings had already signed up to Steemit. Others had just been ‘lurking.’ One of the challenges we face as a community is how to get ‘lurkers’ more actively involved on the platform.
One of the speakers, Aditya Dev Sood mentioned Steem in his talk. He spoke positivity about the social dynamic of Steem and indicated that that was the way forward. I was hoping to get to speak to him and ask him if he had signed up etc., alas I think he made an early exit before I had the chance.
Conference Day 2
The second day of the conference was mainly developer focused. Some of the people that I was hoping to catch up with from Day 1 weren't there on the second day. However I did meet an array of interesting people.
One thing that struck me over the two days were the number of people that were new to cryptocurrencies. Many of these people were developers and had a technical background. There were coming to this conference to understand more about the opportunities that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology presented them. I had a number of conversation, from explaining what a blockchain was to discussing the latest price action.
However the knowledge share was two ways. I learned about things I'd never heard of previously such as Hashgraph, which I need to explore further. More important I got a glimpse into the mindset towards the technology. I think the main difference between India and UK when it comes to cryptocurrency is people I spoke (particularly the newcomers to the space) to had a greater deference to government. Most people I spoke to wanted to cross the 't's and dot the 'i's in terms of government approval of crypto activity. In the UK, the attitudes are more laissez-faire. For example, I barely think about the government (beyond tax implications) when it comes to cryptocurrencies - this of all technologies is about empowerment of the individual.
The pitch
Even though I've been immersed in cryptocurrencies for almost four years, I feel like a complete newbie because of all of the new things I pick up daily. Despite this when the Akkshay Arora, one of the organisers asked, towards the end of the conference whether anyone in the audience wanted to come up a do a lightening speech I felt compelled to say a few words.
Mainly because I remembered what it was like to be new to the space. I really wanted to get across the message that the possibilities are endless in this space. It isn't just about mining, investing in ICOs and trading. I especially wanted to get across that there are opportunities to earn while you learn about cryptocurrency - and that's where platforms like Steem and Steemit have a critical role.
My little bro caught the end of my speech when I was talking about @utopian-io, as that Steem frontend seems tailor made for many in the audience:
I hadn't expected to do a speech until five minutes before I was on stage. Next time I'll be sure to have my elevator pitch ready! Cryptocurrency is definitely changing me, for the better. If you'd have told me a couple of years a go I'd be jumping off a plane half way across the world, randomly attending two-day Conferences hours later and giving impromptu speeches at the end of event... I'd have said, "Nah, that's not me."
Well, that most definitely is me now, I guess. It is also one of the key takeaways from this crypto experience for me. It's teaching me, even at my age, how to push boundaries and not to second guess it. Just go with the flow, enjoy the experience, express myself and the rest will take care of itself.
