A tale of two Blockchain Weeks: In case you hadn't heard, it's "Blockchain Week" in New York City. The main event: CoinDesk's Consensus conference, which wrapped up Wednesday evening. The largest annual crypto-focused gathering in the US attracted over 4,000 enthusiasts and industry members to Midtown Manhattan to celebrate decentralization, dream about how blockchains might revolutionize finance and business, and argue about which of today's systems and products we'll still be talking about 10 years from now.
Oh, and party, New York style.
The conference just so happened to coincide with some big upward momentum in the crypto market: At the time of this writing, Bitcoin's price was up more than 25% since a week ago. Optimism that the run may signal the end of "crypto winter," the market downturn the industry has endured since late last year, was palpable inside the conference center. But the trickle of exuberance was nothing like the rushing flood I witnessed at Consensus a year ago.
In May of 2018, the mania of 2017 had yet to wear off. The Hilton Midtown was overrun by more than 8,000 attendees, and at times it felt like there was barely room to move about the venue. There were far more suits in the crowd, which appeared to be full of "investors." Initial coin offerings were a big topic of conversation. Lamborghinis (or, more precisely, "Lambos," the ironic symbol of new crypto wealth) were parked outside the hotel.
This year, the conversations were on the whole more sober and pragmatic, likely reflecting crypto winter's bite. The focus seemed to be on continuing to build new, user-friendly decentralized applications and services that might be compelling for people who want an alternatives to the traditional financial system, and businesses hoping to take advantage of shared, cryptographically secure databases. There was much less talk of token sales. "The tourists are gone," I heard someone say as a way to explain why only half as many people were there.
Perhaps the most serious discussion thread focused on the question of whether it is realistic to think that cryptocurrencies could help citizens in countries with unstable governments and national currencies, particularly Venezuela. The show even featured a center-stage debate over whether the right to engage in private financial transactions is a universal human right. The jury's still out on that one.
As for the party scene, I don't have as many insights, mostly because I didn't make it onto many invite lists. I will note, though, that Snoop Dogg didn't make it this year. One night, I actually did manage to get into a party, thrown by Binance's (yes, that Binance) charity foundation and a startup called Bloq. As I watched the charity foundation raise $100,000 in about 10 minutes—with several donors making large gifts by scanning a QR code projected on a big screen—I was reminded that no matter what anyone says about the merits of this blockchain and crypto stuff, or where they say it's all headed, it still mostly boils down to the pursuit of large sums of money.
If we really see another another extended bull market, won't the tourists come back? I've heard over and over during the past six months that crypto winter has actually been good for the industry, since it made people focus on building new things. The feeling is it weeded out those who weren't serious about developing the technology and using it to change the world. By that logic, I'm left wondering: if crypto spring is here, is that bad for the industry? By time Blockchain Week 2020 rolls around, maybe we'll have an answer.
Andrew Yang looooves the blockchain. Speaking of 2020, Consensus even featured a US presidential candidate. Although Andrew Yang is polling at just three percent nationally, he may have won the hearts and minds of a majority of the nation's crypto-community. On stage at Consensus, he played to the crowd with what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm for blockchains, and called on policymakers to provide more clarity to the industry or risk missing out on the technology's "immense potential."
Yang obviously wants to appeal to the nerds, and he's already put out a detailed stance on cryptocurrency policy. "It's very very hard to invest and innovate if you don't know what the heck the regulatory landscape's gonna look like, and if you've got multiple agencies who may or may not have a say in what you're working on," Yang said, adding that a framework that differs from state to state would be a "nightmare" for innovators.
Though still a longshot for the nomination, Yang has distinguished himself among the crowded Democratic field by pushing for a universal basic income policy that would pay every American $1,000 a month. Sounding like an actual crypto fan, he proposed on stage that a blockchain-based digital currency could be used to incentivize more public service and civic engagement. And he joked (half joked?) that his campaign had at one point considered launching a "Yang coin."
The most serious takeaway from Yang's remarks, though, was a warning to Washington. This industry needs clearer rules of the road, he said. "And if you don't have that, then shocker, other countries will end up being more on the forefront of this technology wave."
You can now pay with cryptocurrency at Whole Foods. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss want you to pay for groceries, movies, ice cream, and many other everyday retail products using cryptocurrency. The twins' digital currency company, called Gemini, has formed a new partnership with payments startup Flexa to incorporate crypto-payment capabilities into the scanners that let you pay with services like Apple Pay.
Users can now use an app called Spedn to pay with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, or Gemini's dollar-backed stablecoin called the Gemini dollar for items at retailers including Whole Foods, Regal Cinemas, Baskin-Robbins, Starbucks, and others, according to Fortune.
Flexa will serve as a bridge between merchants and the blockchain, and will settle the payments in real time using its own network. Merchants can choose to take the payment in either cryptocurrency or dollars. According to Gemini, processing payments like this will be cheaper than using credit card networks. Read more
