Chieng Moua, our CRO, recently attended the annual Bitcoin Conference held in Miami. And yes, some of the enterprise application sessions were remarkably empty.
What was your experience like at the 2022 Bitcoin Conference?
This year was the first year venture capitalists were involved in the conference. In the past, Bitcoin has had a grassroots, technical audience who pushed a lot of the new and emerging technology. This grassroots audience has rarely agreed on much and because Bitcoin relies on a decentralized protocol, there hasn’t been anything to bring them together and force consensus.
I remember sitting in a room full of developers from all around the world, and even though all of them use the same Bitcoin protocol, none of them could agree to standards and practices. Banking, finance, and investment have begun adopting distributed ledger technology to manage network growth. But before these larger institutions commit completely, they’re looking for the kind of market consensus and stability that has thus far eluded the Bitcoin community.
What was the big “aha”?
My big aha? Blockchain might need a bout of regulation to bring stability and consensus to this space. A lot of investor money is sitting on the sidelines waiting.
Looking at the photos that you shared, the conference seemed empty. Why?
First, banking and finance folks are waiting for more regulation from the US and other governments so they can better manage the risks that come with these applications and networks.
Second, there’s a split in the understanding of Bitcoin’s use cases. While industry is looking at new applications of decentralized ledgers and the Bitcoin protocol, its primary use case by consumers is as a store of value. People invest into Bitcoin because they believe that Bitcoin’s value will continue to grow, not diminish. They don’t need to go to a conference to buy and hold.
What’s hot, and what’s not?
What felt hot to me as a technologist were the potentials for growth and new applications. I’m looking at autonomy, layered decentralized ledgers, off-world mining, and the adoption of Bitcoin as a sovereign currency by El Salvador.
What’s not? The reaction by some in the Bitcoin community against ESG. Some attendees I spoke with believe that the US government is trying to bring cryptocurrency exchange under the purview of the SEC, with an intent to tax Bitcoin and slow its adoption. They conflate the ESG concerns with the attempt to control Bitcoin.
The ESG-blockchain challenge is actually a terrific opportunity for GLYNT. We can help the blockchain ecosystem report their emissions accurately, and when they are doing the right thing, the world will have the verified GLYNT data to rely on. This is a great opportunity for GLYNT to spearhead this conversation in the Bitcoin and blockchain community.
Looking ahead 20 years, what’s the benefit of blockchain?
If I were to look into the future 20, 30 years from now, I’ll imagine we have buildings and real estate on Mars and it happens to be owned by CBRE. CBRE is going to have different climate risk and different calculations associated with that part of the Solar System versus what’s happening here in the States or on Earth. For me, this is natural evolution.
Now think about how information needs to be transported between two different places, how it can be monetized, how it can be commercialized. That’s distributed ledger technology.
Next, think about what is risk, and who will invest in it. And who will invest in the value assets, the buildings themselves. With climate change, there is an entirely new risk class, and assets that go far beyond the stock market.
GLYNT is at the very beginning of this. While we are focused on the compliance, the auditability, the reporting side of it there, there will be a whole new class of capabilities above and beyond just managing carbon emissions today.
Frankly, I’m really looking forward to that trip to Mars to inspect real estate.
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