July 10 was the first day of the RISE Conference in Hong Kong, bringing together some of the most brilliant minds in tech from around the globe. Blockchain technology had a strong presence, and ConsenSys arrived to promote a decentralized future and a blockchain-powered APAC region in particular.

Day 1 of the RISE Conference in Hong Kong began with overcast skies and light rain as 15,000 attendees descended on the Hong Kong Convention Center for the three day tech conference. The event — bridging Eastern and Western tech worlds — brings together leaders from across the tech industry for days of talks, panels, press conferences, workshops, and meetings. ConsenSys is here with Mesh members from across APAC and abroad to continue promoting the opportunities for blockchain technology.

Press Conference: Kaleido Expands into APAC

ConsenSys’ day 1 kicked off with a press announcement from Kaleido, The Blockchain Business Cloud . Kaleido is an enterprise solution platform enabling companies to set up a private or private-permission blockchain in a matter of minutes. In response to clients’ needs in APAC, Kaleido arrived at RISE to announce their expansion into APAC in partnership with AWS, with a focus on enterprise solutions.

An initiative earlier in the year in the Philippines allowed Kaleido to partner with UnionBank to pilot an enterprise blockchain that would connect rural banks to the national financial ecosystem. Project i2i successfully got five banks up and running in six weeks, with fifty more in the pipeline and a potential customer base of ~500. As a result of bank interconnection, the initiative will also bring millions of un- and underbanked individuals into the (inter)national financial ecosystem.

At RISE, Kaleido announced its second partnership in APAC and first partnership in China. Caifeng Gene is a genomics data platform collaborating with Kaleido to establish a private-permissioned blockchain. The blockchain will enable health providers to more effectively coordinate data to provide better treatment and prevention plans for Chinese citizens with or at risk of diabetes. Read more about the project here.

Left to Right: Lifeng Tian, Joe Lubin, Sophia Lopez

Panel: “What Will Really Happen in Crypto?”

Later in the day, Joe Lubin sat on a panel “What Will Really Happen With Crypto?” Moderated by Akiko Fujita of CNBC, the panel also included Erik Torenberg of Village Capital and Melissa Guzy of Arbor Ventures. Recap of a few questions from the panel below. Full stream available here.

Fujita: If we compare blockchain development with that of the Internet early days, where are we?

Lubin: Early in the evolution of the Internet, companies were wary of working with a new “public” Internet. They gradually grew to understand its utility and program it to their needs by recognizing the power of connectivity. We saw this same hesitation followed by widespread adoption fairly recently with the cloud. Companies were hesitant and how it’s core to many business models. That’s where we are with blockchain technology. We see these early, public technologies emerge and mature to become enterprise-friendly as they put together more and more usage cases.

Torenberg: We are in 1994 as it relates to infrastructure and 1998 as it refers to hype. In ’94, Internet adoption was mostly retail, but people were truly waiting for it to mature. There is a tremendous amount of talent, interest, and idealism — but it is still very early to talk about mass adoption and use at a large scale. Some issues right now are scalability and the lack of a stable coin.

Guzy: We’re in the 1980s in the sense that we’re still very early in the cycle of innovation and development. The breadth of technology and opportunity is large, but young. Layer 1 is out there and well established, and we’re just starting to see layer 2 being developed. At the end of the day, however, this is an exciting area with transformational potential on the technology sector. Fujita: There are tons of companies saying they are using blockchain technology for X or for Y. How do you sniff out opportunists vs. real innovators in this front?

Torenberg: Always ask people why they need a blockchain for what they are building. Many people are simply trying to capitalize on the hype and raise money quickly and without much regulation. We are seeing people apply blockchain to verticals that don’t need it. Entrepreneurs must have a really good answer to that question.

Guzy: Part of the issue is that companies come in and say they are using blockchain technology, but they can really just use a system that exists now. The value of blockchain technology is changing the way structures are done today and the way people behave. The hype and the opportunists detract from the technology implications we will have in the future. The value we look for is companies and people using blockchain for what it was truly meant. Changing the way we do business and redefining how we operate in society.

Lubin: The internet started very narrow; just messaging and information display. Over time, we added commerce and social. Blockchain, however, is starting out very wide — it is promising to affect almost every industry and many use cases are being tested. There are more opportunists in the space, but also more innovators. Fujita: The elephant in the room is regulation. What is the current regulatory landscape and what can we expect?

Lubin: There are two major categories for which regulation applies — cryptocurrencies and securities. Cryptocurrency regulation will be more complicated to figure out, but we will have many important use cases for cryptocurrencies that require legislation. The securities issue are already being figured out in many countries. Information asymmetry has worked against innovators for a long time, making it hard to get into new industries. The low barrier to entry for token launches means it is easier for both good and bad actors to get into the space. We need regulators to help us clean up the industry, and we see that already happening.

Torenberg: Self-regulation is also so important. 2017 was the year of token launches, but 2018 is the year of BUIDL. Raising money vs. delivering products. Communities around these projects will be able to self-regulate to ensure good actors survive and bad actors are held accountable.

Joe Lubin at Day 1’s Panel at RISE

Meetup at The Cage

After the RISE conference ended, ConsenSys hosted a meetup at The Cage, the innovation studio of Lane Crawford Joyce Group (LCJG), the largest luxury retailer in Asia. The event kicked off with an introduction from Cristina Ventura, Chief Catalyst Officer of LCJG. Ventura announced the partnership between ConsenSys Social Impact and LUXARITY, the social venture arm of LCJG. The partnership — the first of ConsenSys’ partnerships in Hong Kong — will establish a blockchain platform that will track donations received by LUXARITY through annual sales of “pre-loved” luxury clothing items. The tokenization of donated goods and the tracking of donations on the blockchains holds tremendous opportunity for the transparency and security of the social impact industry. A full post on the partnership between LUXARITY and ConsenSys can be found here.

Fireside Chat: Joe Lubin, Dr. Guang Zhao, Jehan Chu

The meetup continued with a fireside chat moderated by Jehan Chu, Managing Parnter at Kentic Capital. Joe Lubin and Dr. Guang Zhao of ConsenSys and Ethereum HK answered questions about Ethereum and blockchain technology. A recap of some of the questions below:

Chu: How do you see social consciousness developing in the blockchain industry?

Lubin: We are living in a time that is quite different in character from the past few decades. Previously, we’ve been forced to build siloed, walled-garden ecosystems. Proprietary, competitive, hierarchical organization and decision making has been necessary for success because communication was slow and decisions needed to be pushed from the top down. Now, the world is wrapped in instantaneous communication. We need to have a new way of operating that takes advantage of this immediacy. The foundational unit of how we work together is shifting from a siloed infrastructure to a shared infrastructure, catalyzed and supported by blockchain technology. Chu: What are you seeing in China with respect to blockchain development and adoption?

Zhao: Well, it’s a bit all over the place. Mentally, the adoption rate is very high — even if the actual technological development isn’t as high. Blockchain technology, however, is being approached similarly to industrial Internet. The core technology is still relying on the west, on Silicon Valley. China’s blockchain industry has transformed quite a bit. The government has passed regulation on token launches, but has embraced the underlying technology aggressively. In two separate national strategic initiatives, blockchain has been established as a major strategy for the country. The Chinese government is planning the development of five smart cities that will implement blockchain technology. Chu: It is easy to be mesmerized by volatility of crypto prices. What do you think we as a blockchain community are not paying enough attention to? What’s urgent, important?

Lubin: We are so overwhelmed by the amount of growth in the space and the onslaught of incoming interest that we don’t have enough time to do everything. In terms of priorities, I would say focus less on the attitudes of the markets. We are seeing a new ecosystem, a new way of structuring society being birthed. Don’t sweat the ups and downs. Focus on the broader mission.

Alethio and the EEA

The evening ended with two talks from members of ConsenSys. Danning Sui, data scientist for Alethio, demonstrated the capabilities of the block explorer platform. Using radical data visualization, Sui explained how Alethio’s platform allows enthusiasts, technologists, traders, and investors to have insight into activity on the Ethereum blockchain that is currently unavailable through traditional block explorers. By leveraging rich data analytics, Alethio empowers Ethereum users to make more informed decisions about their activity on the blockchain.

The evening ended with a talk from Niv Aviram of ConsenSys. Niv discussed the role of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) in the global growth of the Ethereum ecosystem. With nearly 600 members (including ConsenSys) across the world, the EEA aims to facilitate the adoption of blockchain technology by enterprise clients, recognizing the importance of wide scale adoption by larger entities. The EEA is focused on the ecosystem at large, and Aviram walked the crowd through some of the more exciting initiatives of the team.