My true passions in life are sharing energy with people and making people happy. These passions are exactly what I experienced for three days straight at the London Blockchain Conference (LBC) from May 31 until June 2 at the QEII Center in Westminster.
The purpose of the LBC was to bring enterprises and governments onto the blockchain by educating stakeholders on the true utility of a scalable, public blockchain, all within the law.
However, the true magic behind this event was not just the incredible content that was shared, it was the people involved and the energy that we shared with one another.
On the final night of the conference, at the closing party, Stefan Matthews, Executive Chairman of the nChain Group, delivered a speech and said the event’s success was all down to love. I could not agree more.
The love began with the magnificent ladies who powered the Greenroom, a backstage space for beautifying speakers and lightening up the mood before going on stage.
Of all the conferences I’ve attended throughout my career, the only ones with makeup artists available for speakers have been those produced by Calvin Ayre. For me, as a speaker and on-cam presenter, access to makeup artists is a complete luxury and a very special touch. I’m forever grateful to those ladies for attending to my needs every single morning and throughout each day.
On stage every morning, we were treated to a set of keynote speakers spanning across a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. These speakers included the likes of Kenneth Braithwaite, former Secretary of the U.S. Navy; Ryan Kavanaugh of Proxima Media and big name in Hollywood; Ben McKenzie, an actor most famous for his role as Ryan Atwood on The O.C.; and Peter Schiff, financial commentator, author and personality in the precious metals space.
Following the keynotes, each day featured a series of panels and presentations split between two stages, a technical stage, and a business stage. When I actually had time to soak up the content, I was at the business stage and just loved watching emcee Lucy Hedges light up the room each time she appeared. I was also responsible for moderating two fantastic panels during the LBC, both at the business stage under Hedges’ helm.
My first panel, The Future of Blockchain Tokens, was made up of FIVE lovely gentlemen: Sean Griffin, Co-Founder of ObjectLayer; Jackson Laskey, Co-Founder & CEO of AssetLayer; Dr. Holger Vogel, an Independent Consultant; Christopher Messina, CEO of Tanbreez Mining (and host of the Messy Times podcast); and Jack Pitts, Co-Founder of Structured Linguistics (SLictionary). We had a total of 30 minutes to enlighten the audience, so the biggest challenge for me was time management with a chatty bunch like this.
Our goal as a group was to introduce the audience to practical examples of tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with utility. We explained why hypes over JPEG collectibles such as Bored Apes are just scratching the surface of what we can do with blockchain-powered tokens.
My second panel was focused on the Trust Economy and Blockchain, featuring superstar speakers Kirsty Barany-Gibson of Scale Facilitation; Dr. Agata Slater, Blockchain Strategy Consultant at IBM; Steve Smid, Chief Product Officer at TrueWorld Organisation (TWO) and; Justin Pauly, President at V.X. Technologies.
In this panel, we discussed future-proofing businesses using blockchain tech to make brands more trustworthy. Now that we have become a fully digital world, we dove into trust as the key to unlocking billions! Throughout the discussion, we uncovered fundamental ways in which trust provides value and reduces cost, a popular topic for those in the audience, as you can imagine.
During the breaks and at the end of each day, CoinGeek TV broadcasted live from the expo floor, a talk show-style segment with alternating hosts Kurt Wuckert Jr., Jon Southurst, and me, featuring key speakers and stakeholders as guests.
LBC 2023 was the first time I’d ever hosted CoinGeekTV, and this was my favorite part of the event. I had the pleasure of welcoming my panelists, Dr. Slater and Laskey, in addition to nChain’s Giovanni Franzese, Christen Ager-Hanssen, and Matthews on set, and I cannot tell you how much fun we all had. If you have not already seen the CoinGeekTV segments from LBC, I urge you to do so on-demand on the CoinGeek YouTube channel. I’m sure they will make you smile.
Although a bit more formal than years previous, the closing speaker and sponsor party was a delight, taking place at a trendy members-only club in Mayfair with an open bar, D.J., and ample space to mix and mingle with VIPs.
My ultimate highlight from the evening—and one of my top highlights from the event as a whole—was spending significant time talking with Schiff and his wife, Lauren, about anything and everything other than gold and Bitcoin, followed by enjoying their spectacular performance on the dance floor.
As I said earlier, for me, it’s not just about the technology; it’s also about the people behind the technology. Connecting with personalities such as Schiff is as good as it gets, and at the end of the day, we are all just people looking to enjoy life in one way or another.
I cannot thank everyone enough for attending, speaking, sponsoring, and/or working at LBC 2023; it was a magnificent experience all around that I will never forget.
And lastly, my biggest thank you goes to Calvin Ayre for everything he does for LBC and the ecosystem as a whole because without him, none of this magical world of ours would exist.
Watch London Blockchain Conference Day 3 Highlights: Driving innovation, competitiveness with blockchain
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