Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Meetup Event – Consensus 2019

The consensus is the annual meet of the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology world. Since 2015, CoinDesk is coming up with Consensus meet.  The Consensus 2019 goal is to be bigger and better than its previous year. With Consensus, a lot of small startups can connect with big giants to discuss and learn from each other in the span of three days.

Why Consensus Meet?

Before diving deep into updates of events in Consensus 2019, let’s understand why Consensus 2019 and what makes it so special.

The first and foremost thing about the event is it’s exceptional networking opportunities that it offers. It is one of the largest global meet which brings from students, academics, entrepreneurs to traders, developers under one roof.

Here they can discuss and try to solve the problem themselves by a proper feedback loop. As a entrepreneur, you can look out for new ventures by networking with the people you need for your businesses.

Consensus was scheduled from May 13-  May 15, 2019, at the New York Hilton Midtown and Sheraton New York Times Square. It calls the industry participants ranging from. This meeting breaks down the barriers that separate companies in the industry. And also allows each and everyone working on the technology to spend three days learning from their peers.

Previous speakers were from titans of Wall Street, Fortune 500, to scientists and the core developers who power the world’s most valuable cryptocurrencies.

Few of the names are FedEx’s Fred Smith, Fidelity’s Abigail Johnson, Square’s Jack Dorsey to the Chairman of the US Securities Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton.

This time it was expected to feature more than 8,000+ attendees, 200+ sponsors and 125+ speakers.

Updates From Consensus 2019

Coinbase discuss potential “self-custody” options

• During an on-stage discussion at the Consensus 2019 event on Wednesday. CEO of coinbase, Armstrong, was asked a question about the status of institutional involvement in the cryptocurrency industry by panel moderator and Wall Street Journal reporter ‘Paul Vigna’.

To which Armstrong replied:

“ we’ve just crossed $1 billion AUM or institutions after the custody came into existence around 12 months ago, 70 institutions have signed up and adding about $150 million AUM a month. So, to a large degree, this has been a success.”

Chainlink announce Mainnet launch set for May 30,  2019

• The CEO of decentralized oracle network Chainlink – Sergey Nazarov, announced that ChainLink is planning to launch on the Ethereum mainnet this month.

Crypto exchange Gemini announces a partnership with Flexa, onboard retailers for crypto payments

• Starbucks, Nordstrom and whole foods accepting Bitcoin now. Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of Gemini exchange pays at Starbucks using their own created cryptocurrency.

• Former congressman Ron Paul says it’s a terrible idea to ban cryptocurrency and dismisses the call done by Rep. Brad Sherman to ban cryptocurrencies.

NEO unleash several key announcements about the future of the project

• At the consensus event, NEO co-founder Da Hongfei gave a speech, Hongfei said there is a plan of a new $100m USD EcoBoost program. It is designed to elevate the growth of the NEO ecosystem. However, the EcoBoost program will focus on seed project activation, to support dApp growth, infrastructure development, and have institutional collaboration.

• Hongfei spoke about his vision for the next generation internet and NEO’s role in its future i.e NEO 3.0.

• Moreover, ‘Da hongfei’ was recently named as one of eleven ambassadors for the Binance Charity Foundation. An initiative by Binance, which aims to offer “on-chain assistance to needy children”  in a “transparent, trustless” manner.

SEC: Hester Peirce Says The Time For Approval Is Now

• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) member Hester Peirce spoke at Consensus 2019, where she shows little disappointment about the current regulation and optimism about what the future holds. Also, She feels the crypto community need to take a step to have a dialogue to “educate” the SEC.

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) once again delayed a decision to approve or reject a Bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded fund) on Tuesday.

• SEC last time postponed a decision on both the Bitwise and VanEck/SolidX in March. Also, the regulator is yet to approve any bitcoin ETFs, though both experts in the space and officials with the agency believes it’s just only a matter of time.

• When Chris Brummer asked Hester Peirce: Do you think the time is right to launch an ETF?” Hester Peirce replied: “she thinks the time was right a year ago. But there are still questions that need to be answered by the audience.

Final Thoughts

During this consensus meet where all crypto experts, students, traders, and entrepreneurs were meeting, Bitcoin surpassed the $8000 mark for the first time in the last 10 months. Around, this time binance went system upgrades and launched the new Harmony token. The consensus 2019 was made a successful meet which provided a platform to solve existing crypto problems and launching new technologies.

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