Tl;dr Attendance for the conference was drawn from all areas of business and there was a definite shift in attitudes from the beginning to end of the conference. Many of the people I talked to had transformed into blockchain advocates by the conclusion of the conference and were now on board with cryptocurrency (multiple people contacting me wanting to know how to get themselves some Ether/Bitcoin).

The team that set this conference up was amazing; they managed to draw in some of the biggest names in all of blockchain. Impressively gathering these industry heavyweights in a distant corner of the world that culminated in an event I hope will change the way crypto and wider blockchain is perceived in New Zealand.

It was great to see such a ridiculously diverse group of markets coming into the space — from everyday investors to banks, from fin-tech to agriculture, healthcare to all facets of government, startups and arts students!

Session 1: “A beginners guide” — this session was exactly that. And for someone who’s had a few years experience pushing refresh on r/ethereum, it was a bit of a slow start. This was understandable however, as it was a business conference after all — we’re not in Cancun yet! At the conclusion of this first session, you could see a sharp shift in tone from the audience: confusion transforming into curiosity.

Session 2: This session involved pretty much the only price discussion over the span of the conference. Presentations also touched on the economic impact that Ethereum and Bitcoin could have on the world, and how it could be treated as some type of investment or store of value. Fran was Brave enough to throw out the possibility of Bitcoin reaching $100,000 in the future, which drew some chuckles from crowd.

This conference was the first time I’d seen Andreas Antonopoulos live. He presents in such a compelling way when speaking about Bitcoin and blockchain, and a number of people referred to him as the best speaker of the event. His use of metaphors were very effective when comparing how this technology is going to make an impact across all areas of traditional business.

Session 3: The topics here were a particularly interesting and thought-provoking period of the conference, especially the idea about monetization of data. My vision had always been that we end up controlling our data and selling it in a self-sovereign type of way (similar to Brave concepts), but the first two presentations made an excellent justification for giving away some data (e.g. medical data). The argument was that if everyone donates at least some portion of their medical data to science, then science has the opportunity to progress much quicker. Ultimately providing more societal value than what could ever be generated from the sale of scientific data.

The 7 min talk from 9 speakers was interesting; some good, some bad. Please read up on any of the speakers for more information! My personal favourite was Christoph Jentzsch (yes the guy who wrote the DAO), founder and CEO of Slock.IT, who are doing some very interesting things and moving the whole Ethereum space forward faster than almost anyone else.

Session 4: This entailed explanation of the DAO, and discussions around ICOs began with a span of differing opinions. Andreas had already criticized ICOs, and Margaux offered what I thought was a reasonable position — arguing that although there are a large number of fundamentally poor ICOs, there are projects that are shining through and offer real potential to change the way crypto and the world works.

Session 5: “Changing business models” — this is where most of the private/public blockchain debate occurred. It was quite evident that some of the businesses were really holding onto the idea of a private chain, which is a topic that’s up for debate across a variety of parties. However, there was actually some productive discussion around how private chains allow for testing — which I thought was the strongest argument. Ethereum is currently in open beta at best, and a place for businesses to test the blockchain while Ethereum continues to develop isn’t a foolish at all.

Session 6: This was easily the best session in my opinion. Max Kaye described a new political system based on blockchain technology and knowledge-based voting, which generated more questions than answers from the audience. However, it was such an incredible idea as I believe the transparency provided by blockchain undoubtedly needs to be integrated into government. And being a Political Science student myself, this kind of blockchain application resonates strongly with me.

The next speaker was Peter Borah from Ownage. He described features that are being developed for the scalability of Ethereum, as well as broader new and upcoming features (ENS, zk snarks, PoS). These ideas were super interesting and I felt like it answered a lot of criticisms that people attending the conference had of blockchains.

Finally we had Vitalik, obviously the most technical person at the conference who proceeded to explain Ethereum and Blockchains in a down to earth, non technical way. He interacted with the audience so well and got people really thinking about how this technology could make an impact in every sector. Talking to people that didn’t know who Vitalik was before the conference were suddenly his biggest fan, with one business rep saying to me “I understand why you were so hyped about Vitalik, he’s going to change the world”. It seemed like this was the key take away message for many of the people attending.

I also managed to have a conversation with Vitalik after drinks. I asked him, “With China opening Ethereum research labs and Korea buying Ether at huge rates, are these nations beating the ‘West’ in Ethereum adoption?”.

Vitalik replied essentially disagreeing with my observation, stating that the West has been adopting Ethereum at speed too. This to me was in reference to the EEA and the adoption of Ethereum by big business, which gave me more faith. Huge sections of Asia are adopting Ethereum and it’s still seen as slow compared to the EEA.

A note worth mentioning for any ICO followers: there was only one ICO that I recognised at the conference who was WeTrust. Tom was a super genuine guy and really gave me even more confidence in the WeTrust team.

Special thanks to 3months and everyone involved with the setup of the conference. To all of those who stayed out until all hours of the night drinking too much and talking blockchain — I hope to see you at the next conference!