On September 13th I traveled to Boston to attend Token Fest. Attendees consisted of Venture Capital firms, Crypto funds, Startups in the Blockchain space, lawyers, developers, data scientists, marketers, local students, brokers, and people interested in this exciting emerging new field. The conference was held at the newly developed and bustling seaport area and was a pleasant experience. The conference attracted companies like Google, Nike, Deloitte, Facebook, Indiegogo, AT&T, Alphapoint, Ledger, Steemit, Coinbase, Consensys, and many others involved in the Blockchain space. Usually at these conferences the talks comprise of speculative global regulations, new emerging companies in the space that aim to solve specific problems that others have not yet, and other emerging tech.

One of the more promising projects presented at Token Fest was Kadena. They are more of an enterprise Blockchain solution focused on solving problems for businesses, both scalability and Smart Contracts using their own “Pact” technology. They offer both a public Blockchain and enterprise Bockchain. This will allow humans to read and write logic directly onto a Blockchain. They currently claim 10,000 transactions per second with their current capability. I am interested to watch the development of this company in the years to come.

Steemit was also present at the conference as a major sponsor and they have been working on collectables, specifically characters that can be traded, sort of like the Beanie Baby craze of the 90’s Collectables are becoming a hot topic in the Blockchain world as there is an audience for people who collect these. Some of you may also remember the Crypto Kitties craze that took place earlier this year and garnered prices in the 6 figures per “Kitty”. Are they the future or just a fad, hard to tell but I don’t see them going away anytime soon.

I also enjoyed talking with companies like 0x Protocol, and learning more about what they are doing these days. ZRX is powering decentralized exchanges as a base layer and governance project and they are based in California. It’s one of my favorite projects and I think they have a bright future ahead. I was able to talk with one of their team members about current developments and gained some great insights.

NEO Global Capital Event

After the conference the next day, I attended a private event for NEO Global Capital. They incubate and launch projects and are behind some incredible companies such as Ontology, Bluzelle, Zilliqa, Trinity, IoTex, MainFrame, Certik, Oasis Labs, nOs, NKN, MultiVAC, and Celer Network. All of these projects have been applauded by the Blockchain research community as having great potential for the future. Whether they succeed or not only time will tell, but the teams behind these projects are top tier.

We heard from well known VC’s in the space who have been researching and investing in new projects and gave some commentary on the current environment. Some of them feel we may be in a 1-2 year bear market, as volume is low and adoption needs to be gained in order for things to pick up again. We also have seen so many companies pop up in a craze like atmosphere that many investors are sitting on the bleachers waiting to see some plays happen. I will say that regardless of the impatience from investors, I know that many of these companies are behind the scenes working on the tech, building, networking and going on roadshows to build partnerships and spread the awareness of the project. Many people saw 2017 as a bubble, but in order for new ideas to come to fruition, they need to be pioneered in the first place. It takes time, many people will fail and very few will succeed like anything in life.

Impressions on the Future

In January 2017, I attended “Bitcoin Miami” and the atmosphere was in full FOMO (fear of missing out) and a stampede arrived. Prices crashed at the beginning of 2018 and many investors felt burned and left the space forever. It was an exciting time but now we are gearing up for new arrivals. We are also anticipating regulatory measures especially for the ETF. Nobody knows if it will be passed, who knows. If it does get passed we may expect to see a major bull run on both Bitcoin and Alt Coins. As an investor in the space, patience is a must. Choose your Tokens carefully and be sure to do a lot of research before jumping in with both feet!