The meetup consisted not only of the local community. We also had people joining from South Africa, Russia, and North America. We got some great feedback and met a lot of other Lisk supporters.

A nice surprise was that MADANA was not completely unknown to most of our audience. So we were able to do more than pitching our idea – we also gave a confidential preview of our white paper. After the official end of the meetup, some of them joined us for the evening to discuss blockchain and crypto related topics. We would have loved to stay longer, but our flight to Shanghai was already scheduled for the next morning.

MADANA Crypto Community in Hong Kong

Shanghai

At first sight, Shanghai reminded us of Hong Kong. The same weather, skyscrapers everywhere and the streets full of people, food, and flashing lights. But a closer look revealed some differences. Traveling in Hong Kong are much faster since the relevant areas are just a few stations apart from each other. In Shanghai this is very different–it is huge and rambling, with security scans at every subway entrance. Moreover, it is known for its impressive skyline and a striving expat community.

MADANA in front of the Shanghai Skyline

In Shanghai, we met a couple of VC firms such as Gobi Capital and pitched our vision. Since data-driven marketplaces are a big thing in China, MADANAs unique spin on it really fascinated them. After presenting the MADANA ecosystem in English and Chinese language, our model to preserve privacy by design raised a lot of interest. Further, we exchanged our thoughts about the current blockchain space, its development and areas of future potential in the Asian market.

The most important reason to go to Shanghai was to gather with the Lisk Elite Group delegates, who secure the greatest part of the Lisk Network. They’ve come from all over China to meet us. Luiz, the President of the Lisk Elite Group, was helping us to reach important people and invited them to come over. That’s how we got to know many high ranked Lisk delegates, which are dedicated and supportive blockchain believers, especially for sidechain projects as MADANA. We felt like home and were immediately on the same page.

Several hours of intense discussions about MADANA, it’s use-cases and ecosystem, we also talked about Lisk related topics. That’s when the brand new Elite Incubator in Xiamen came up, which was recently founded by the Elite Group. It will be a hub for future Lisk sidechain projects in Asia. We believe it can be a great accelerator for Lisk, by bringing startups and developers into the Lisk ecosystem. We support that! As MADANA is the first major sidechain project on Lisk, we share a common vision to expand the Lisk ecosystem with promising projects.