An Introduction and a look back at Futurist Conference 2019
A lot has happened in the last year. It was around January/February 2020 that I was planning on going to some Bitcoin and cryptocurrency conferences with friends. This changed as news broke out everywhere of a world menacing pandemic. Conferences were of course canceled. While there have been several virtual conferences since, they just aren’t the same and it will be great when things can get back to a resemblance of what they used to be. While I was organizing my things at home, I collected some of the crypto-related items I have gathered through some of my interactions with the space so far. I thought writing about them would be a great first post on this site.
Hello. My name is Angel and I like to write for fun. I have always enjoyed gathering information about multiple subjects and sharing it in a collected and focused manner. One of those subjects is the ever-growing cryptocurrency space. While I have been exploring the space for a few years, I am by no means an expert and I hope that by writing about it, I can learn more.
I was first introduced to the technology of Bitcoin around 2011–2012 by one of my best friends John. He was excited about the idea of a new form of currency that was taking the world by storm due to its revolutionary technology. Back then it was not as well known as it is today but it was still gaining much traction at a fast pace.
My first exploration into crypto was in 2014 when I acquired some Litecoin to play around with and see what would happen. Sometime after getting my small amount of Litecoin, the exchange I was using was involved in some problems regarding a hack and some missing funds. That was my first experience getting ‘rekt’ in the space and a cheap lesson at that.
My next lesson was when Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga went through some problems in early 2019 when its owner Gerald Cotten disappeared in India, presumably deceased. This was a bigger loss than before and it was a dose of reality on what can happen when hot storage is used over cold storage. I eventually came to terms with this loss, because even though it was unfortunate, I was strategic enough to not put all my eggs in one basket, as they say.
Later in 2019, I got the opportunity to attend one of the biggest cryptocurrency conferences and certainly the biggest one I had attended to date: Futurist 2019 in Toronto, Canada. This went on from August 13th to 14th. It was an excellent time and I learned a great deal about many different projects in the crypto space.
My friend was working for PIVX at the time and I was there to help out with anything needed, as well as to learn everything I could. This was an invite from my friend John who introduced me to the space years before, where I have met some interesting people in the several conferences and meet-ups we’ve been to.
The nature of anything tech-related is that it moves at a blazing fast speed and the crypto space is the same if not faster, hence some of the projects I encountered aren’t around anymore but most are.
Throughout the two days at the conference, John and met the different staff of the attending crypto projects there in order to fulfill his role in business development for PIVX at the time. I observed as we visited all the booths presenting different innovative start ups as well as established companies dealing with everything from real estate to collectible NFTs and more.
Some of the following projects and companies are known to many learned individuals in the crypto space, but some of my own personal acquaintances and friends are not familiar with them, and many of them have recently started their journey in cryptocurrency. The following will be a brief exploration of some of the projects I ran into and some information about them.
1.) Edge Wallet platform
Edge wallet is one of the first cryptocurrency wallets I tried out for mobile. It was launched as a Bitcoin wallet and business directory under the former name of “AirBitz” in 2014. Edge became a multi-currency wallet in 2017 and supports more than 20 different cryptos besides Bitcoin including Litecoin, Binance Coin, Ethereum and more. They are often named in lists of most accessible cryptocurrency wallets.
2.) Coinberry, crypto trading platform
This is another popular wallet that mobile users can utilize. Founded in 2017, it was initially a Bitcoin ATM company that evolved into a full fledged crypto trading platform. In 2019 Coinberry became the first digital currency platform to partner up with Canadian Municipal Governments to allow citizens to pay property taxes with Bitcoin.
3.) KeepKey hardware wallet
One of the more popular cold storage devices to keep one’s crypto safe from hackers and at times, questionable exchanges. The device was developed by ShapeShift, a crypto exchange founded in 2014 by Erik Voorhees, a Bitcoin pioneer. An interesting historical aside is that Erik was also the founder of Satoshi Dice in 2012, a crypto gambling site he subsequently sold in 2013 for 126,315 BTC. This is about $7.5 Billion by today’s astronomical Bitcoin prices. This was the first major acquisition of a blockchain company and the transaction was carried out in Bitcoin. Erik and many other pioneers of the crypto space can be seen in one of my favorite Bitcoin documentaries, The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin.
The KeepKey cold storage device allows the user to generate and keep their private keys offline while enabling the use of the wallet’s ShapeShift software for secure transactions. This is backed up by a 12-word recovery sentence used to retrieve the keys in the event of the device breaking or getting lost. Devices such as these are absolutely essential for keeping one’s cryptocurrency funds safe. Hundreds of millions of dollars have either been hacked from exchanges, lost by individuals or stolen in physical attacks. All of this shows the importance of proper cryptocurrency storage practices.
4.) DAPS- Decentralized Anonymous Payment System
A privacy blockchain built on top of the Ethereum network as an ERC-20 token with an anonymous staking coin and payment system. It was released on 2018. It has a Proof of Work/Proof of Stake/Proof of Activity hybrid blockchain:
Proof of Work- Participants mine to get crypto
Proof of Stake- Participants hold crypto to get more crypto
Proof of Activity- Participants can either mine or stake
This hybrid blockchain is referred to in the DAPS whitepaper as a Proof-of-Audit protocol designed to solve the trust problem inherent in some Blockchains. DAPS was a community driven project as opposed to an ICO. Upon completion of mainnet, some of the features included in the staking and masternode hybrid, full-privacy chain were stealth addresses, ring ct, ring signatures and bulletproofs.
5.) Ditigible NFT Inc
Digitible is an NFT platform that hosts digital collectibles that have 3d printable options. The company works with numerous companies, one of which is Decentraland, a virtual reality world where users can sell their art as well as their virtual land. Digitible allows users to design, mint and keep their digitibles on bars, coins or other physical items. The back of this particular card features some images of Ross Ulbricht, the man made famous by Silk Road and its aftermath.
6.) Orchid- The Crypto Powered VPN
Orchid was founded in 2017 to bring a vision of a more decentralized internet to reality, therefore restoring it to its initial function. Their mission is to create more open source software to enable easy and open access to the internet for everyone. Due to the sometimes non-consensual sharing of our information, our data can be sold to advertisers without our knowledge. They offer a decentralized, peer-to-peer VPN app for android and apple. The app allows users to buy and sell bandwidth from different world wide service providers. Orchid uses OXT which is a ERC-20 utility token for smart contracts, incentivized bandwidth proxying, payment functions and algorithmic advertising.
7.) Metaverse DNA
The DNA in Metaverse stands for Dual Network Architecture and it describes a second chain which is powered by it’s own native tokens and operated on a PoS consensus algorithm. It was launched in 2019. It is a scalable, interoperable and decentralized ecosystem that boasts features such as oracles, fast transactions, solid security and on-chain identity. Their network boasts a block time of 0.5 seconds, much faster than BTC’s 10 minutes. The price of transactions are also a fraction of what they are on the BTC and ETH networks.
Founded in 2011, Incipient is a research, development and education company that focuses on different areas such as media management, market engineering, educational systems and blockchain technology, to name a few. For Blockchain, they offer services such as whitepaper crafting, market strategizing, model assessment, marketing, and other areas of development.
9.) Consilium Crypto
Consilium was founded in 2017 and it provides liquidity management to traders in times of thin liquidity. Through advanced optimization techniques, they provide solutions for users in the digital asset market, OTC desks, miners and more. Consilium has a streamlined Liquidity Routing System which allows users to keep total control of their assets from the quote stage to the execution stage. The original goal of the founder was to build a crypto hedge fund. Consilium on average analyzes 17,000 trading pairs, over 1000 assets all across 50 different exchanges, tracking raw data down to the millisecond in order to help traders find alpha (a market performance measure) and place the right orders at the right times.
10.) Cryptowhales
This is a very informative table top game for people wanting to learn more about Bitcoin and Blockchain. The game allows you to use them and learn about their technical aspects as you go. It includes six different crypto currencies/blockchain platforms (Bitcoin, Zcash, Ripple, Doge, a stable coin and a “poop” coin) and the elements in and around their ecosystems such as miners, validators, developers, community, lending platforms, exchanges, law firms and more. The game was published by CryptoChicks, a non-profit organization created by software engineers Elena Sinelnikova and Natalia Ameline to help women understand blockchain technology. The organization has spread to 56 countries and helps women build new careers, businesses and investments in the blockchain space.
11.) DMS Labs Creative
DMS Labs Creative is a media and marketing company for the blockchain industry. Their services include design, consulting, website development, video editing and promotion. They designed graphics for booth banners and tablecloths at the Futurist 2019 Conference Site. They also designed slides for sponsors and they do logo design.
In Conclusion
This has been an exploration of some of the booths I encountered at Futurist Conference 2019. I met some great people in the space, had some excellent food and danced a little at the on site after party. I leave the reader with a photo of two USB Bitcoin miners I acquired the same year I bought my first crypto in 2015. These were more like souvenirs of simpler times since I never used them because when I received them, they were already obsolete due to the meteoric rise of the Bitcoin Hashrate.
Tech moves fast and the crypto space even faster.
One last photo. As I was leaving the conference I spotted the legendary Dr. Ben Goertzel who was at the conference to give a talk. The prior year in 2018, I had watched him in a riveting interview about Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain on Joe Rogan’s podcast. That interview blew my mind about the possibilities and future of Artificial General Intelligence and what we can expect to see in our near future. Dr. Goertzel is presently partnered and working with the Cardano platform to develop SingularityNET, a decentralized AI platform that lets AI agents cooperate to solve problems without a controller. Dr. Goertzel was at one time the Chief Scientist of Hanson Robotics which created Sophia, the first robot to receive citizenship of any country.
