Blockchain, digital currencies, and decentralization provided the subject matter for high-profile conversations in packed auditoriums, intimate panels, and an overwhelming spread of creatively endeavored events over the course of South By Southwest in Austin this past week. Although signs of an impending wave were evident last year, 2018 will undoubtedly be remembered as the year that blockchain tech ascended the zeitgeist of SXSW and its intersection of tech, music, film, business, and culture.

Led by founder Joe Lubin offering the keynote speech at the Austin Convention Center, ConsenSys was at the center of the blockchain discourse, with Spokes and members popping up all over the event calendar at SXSW, with the #EtherealSXSW Lounge providing a home base for the week’s worth of learning, networking, discussion, and partying.

Lit in lilac and blue, the ConsenSys Lounge also played the setting for a notable set of discussions about how blockchain technology can facilitate progress in relation to a number pressing social and cultural issues, as well as a look under the hood of decentralized computer networks and the internet of the future.

Here are some highlights from the talks, addressing everything from gender equality to the music industry, smart contracts to journalism:

Blockchain and Music: Shifting Power Structures in the Music Industry

Jesse Grushack of UJO sat down with Jesse Kirshbaum of Nue Agency and Matt Medved of Billboard Music to discuss the myriad ways in which blockchain is reorganizing the way that artists and musicians produce and distribute their work.

With UJO’s Creator Alpha portal recently launched and a wave of intrepid artists set to join the likes of Imogen Heap, Giraffage, and RAC in taking control of their music licensing and distribution, the trio discussed the many ways in which the legacy music industry has limited independent artists, and what a deconstructed music industry may look like in the blockchain future.

2018 and Beyond: Women and Inclusion in Technology

Featuring leading voices from across tech, finance, and media, the Women and Inclusion in Technology discussion addressed how blockchain’s potential to alter the foundational structure of society represents and opportunity to enact a more developed understanding of inclusion.

Issues of intersectionality and the importance of diversity of thought provided a nuanced perspective on how the tech industry and society-in-general can progress further towards inclusion, and how this emergent culture of blockchain can lead the way.

Journalism in a Time of Misinformation: A Solution

Wall Street Journal writer Paul Vigna began a conversation about the economics of journalism in the age of “fake news.” With traditional business models eroding the very foundations of journalism, the focus now turns new models that elevate transparency, sustainability, and quality.

ConsenSys spoke Civil, which will launch this year with its network of user-supported newsrooms, is creating a marketplace for sustainable journalism with a decentralized perspective. Representatives for a number of launch partner newsrooms of the Civil platform like Popula, Sludge offered their take on the way forward in media.

Smart Contracts: A Conversation with Joe Lubin and Stephen Wolfram

ConsenSys Founder Joe Lubin sat down with pioneering computer scientist Stephen Wolfram to discuss smart contracts and future computer networks at the EtherealSXSW Lounge for a more high level discussion of computer science and philosophy. Wolfram, whose ideas, books, and projects have influenced many in the blockchain space, went back and forth with Lubin on what the internet of the future may look like, before opening up the floor to questions.