The first year of Blockchain - a review of the 2016 San Francisco Blockchain Summit

On March 7, 2016, local time, the 2016 San Francisco Blockchain Conference hosted by Nasdaq and IBM just concluded at the Nasdaq Entrepreneur Center in San Francisco, USA.

The industry's most cutting-edge experts, venture capitalists and entrepreneurial pioneers: John Wolpet (IBM, Global Blockchain Offering Director), Jeremy Drane (PWC, Director – FinTechBlockchain/Smart Contract Practice Lead), Kelly Olson (Intel, Director –Distributed Ledger Technology), Yorke Rhodes III (Microsoft, Blockchain Business Strategist) and other elites from the world's top blockchain teams discussed the current status and development of blockchain technology and applications with industry elites.

Tech giants unveil blockchain initiatives

Kelly Olsen from Intel and John Wolpert from IBM, as representatives of technology companies, discussed the views of technology giants on blockchain and its future.

IBM and Intel, two traditional IT technology giants, both believe that blockchain technology is still in its early stages of development, and that neither the Bitcoin network nor the Ethereum network can be used directly by large enterprises without modification, which is why both IBM and Intel are actively promoting their own blockchain research programs. However, both parties agree that blockchain technology is very innovative and vital, and may become the outlet for the next generation of Internet innovation.

John mentioned that IBM has a blockchain team of more than 100 people around the world, exploring the application of blockchain technology in finance, Internet of Things, supply chain, identity recognition and other fields. In addition to participating in Hyperledger projects, IBM has also launched its own blockchain plan, and IBM attaches great importance to the potential application scenarios of blockchain technology.

Startups are emerging

Startups in the blockchain field, including Hedgy, Hellosent, Code Valley, CyGuard, and Vechain, have made achievements and solutions in their respective blockchain explorations.

As the only Chinese startup team representative participating in this summit, VeChain's CTO Shuai Chu brought a small climax to the audience. His brief and concise speech as well as VeChain's own product conception and application prospects attracted the attention of the audience. In the subsequent venture capital point of view session (VC Point of View), when the host asked several VCs present which startup team participating in the speech today was most likely to become the next unicorn company, BitAngel Chairman Michael Terpin said without hesitation "VeChain!"

Investor Views

During the investor discussion session, three representatives from the venture capital community all expressed great interest in the blockchain field.
Among them, the chairman of BitAngels, Mr. Michael Terpin, has a great background. BitAngels Fund is a Bitcoin angel investment fund and incubator jointly established by more than 60 angel investment institutions from multiple cities, focusing on investing in and incubating Bitcoin-related startups and teams. He once participated in the largest CrowdSale in the Bitcoin field and raised 7 million US dollars for MaidSafe in 5 hours.
Christa Steele was also attracted by the disruptive innovation of blockchain due to her background in the financial industry. When the host asked a question: Do you think the blockchain field will soon lead the transformation of various industries in the future? All three of them agreed.

Future Challenges and Prospects

Blockchain is undoubtedly one of the most promising new technology fields. The development of blockchain has attracted the world's top banks, financial institutions and service companies, traditional technology giants, and of course the most sensitive venture capitalists. Of course, entrepreneurs in the blockchain field still face considerable challenges. Jeremy from PwC pointed out that how to apply blockchain technologies such as smart contracts to different industries and how to commercialize blockchain technology is the biggest challenge for every blockchain entrepreneur besides the technology itself. Of course, this is also a new opportunity for top consulting companies like PwC.

In the discussion of security and identity verification, Darin Stanchfield, CEO of Keepkey, and Stepan Gershuni from BlockNotary believed that in the short term, blockchain will soon develop in areas that are not restricted by laws and regulations, such as supply chain, identity recognition, and the Internet of Things. However, whether the application in the financial field, which everyone is particularly concerned about, is feasible depends largely on the progress of the formulation and improvement of laws and regulations in related fields.

2016-3-7 USA, San Francisco, Nasdaq Entrepreneur Center, Blockchain Summit Venue, Babbitt/VeChain team on-site first-hand report
Source: Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/blockchain-conference-2016)
Editor: Meng Dada