It’s been a challenging year for blockchain and crypto bulls, dominated by dropping (but recently resurging) bitcoin prices and growing (but mostly unrealistic) impatience with mainstream adoption. But as thousands of women and men descend on Midtown Manhattan soon for Blockchain Week 2019, we’ve all got plenty of new reasons to be bullish.

Just ask investors. After spending months talking to investors around the world, I can report that their interest in blockchain — and their optimism about its future — has never been stronger. Their confidence is based on what they see and hear every day from the women and men building new technology. According to a new survey commissioned by Fidelity Investments, which questioned 441 institutional investors from November 2018 to February 2019, 72 percent prefer to buy investment products that hold digital assets, while 57 percent choose to buy them directly.

To the extent you are not convinced by the above numbers; talk to regulators. While we still have work to do, the industry has made huge gains in the past six months convincing global regulatory bodies to embrace smart, balanced approaches to safeguarding the public while enabling blockchain and crypto to flourish. Just last month, for example, Bitfury and our partners at Final Frontier, a financial services firm based in Switzerland, launched a fully regulated bitcoin mining fund designed for institutional and professional investors, following authorization by the Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority.

Job growth in the industry is also exploding. Demand for software engineers with blockchain development skills has rocketed by 517% in the past year, according to the job-search site Hired. We further understand that Facebook alone is hiring dozens of blockchain specialists, as are most other leading Silicon Valley firms.

The Lightning Network is making huge gains this year. In the first quarter of 2019, the network grew from 15,000 to 35,000 unique channels in the network while cumulative bitcoin capacity across all channels doubled from 500 BTC to 1,000 BTC.

And finally, for those who insist on following the hourly ups-and-downs of the bitcoin price, consider this: Bitcoin is up roughly 50 percent since January 1, 2019 — compared to less than a 20 percent increase for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

All of these are, of course, topline indicators. What’s happening on the ground is even more encouraging. Around the world, companies like Bitfury are working every day to design and launch new solutions that are transforming the systems and services that people use every day — across too many industries to even mention here.

And so, once again, reports of blockchain’s and crypto’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Ten years into the lives of these emerging technologies, the future has never looked brighter, stronger or more promising. The year 2018 was challenging, but we learned some important lessons that I believe will make us all stronger — in 2019 and beyond.

Also, Bitfury will be all over New York for Blockchain Week. If you’re at Consensus, drop by Booth #151 to visit with our Crystal Blockchain team and catch a demo of our analytics platform. If you’re at the Magical Crypto Conference, come see Bitfury’s Chief Information Officer Alex Petrov, who will participate on the Future of Mining panel (Saturday at 3:55pm in the Upper Room). Meanwhile, Hut 8 Mining CEO Andrew Kiguel will speak at the ADI Crypto Mining Summit on Monday and will participate on a mining panel at Consensus on Wednesday at 2pm.