London Blockchain Conference Day 3 highlights: How do you drive innovation with blockchain?

width=”562″ height=”315″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”>

“Why are you here today?”

That’s the question nChain Group CEO Christen Ager-Hanssen asked during the opening of the London Blockchain Conference 2023. And it wasn’t a rhetorical question – the answers from the audience ranged from profit to education and business.

The three-day conference, held at the Queen Elizabeth II Center in London, opens many discussions on topics in the blockchain technology industry. Day 1 offers a preview of what a scalable and legal blockchain technology has to offer, while Day 2 highlights the concept of improving trust with blockchain. And day 3 is about looking forward to the future – specifically about how to drive innovation with blockchain technology.

How a “digital gold” system should work

Today’s first keynote speaker, Peter Schiff, discusses how “digital gold” is the answer to the world’s problems.

“There’s this idea that the dollar won’t be replaced because there’s nothing to replace it with because every other fiat currency is in a similar position,” Schiff said. “But the dollar didn’t really replace another currency; it replaced money. It replaced gold. So I think the future is not another fiat currency replacing the dollar – it’s gold replacing the dollar as the primary monetary reserve.”

And the way forward, he says, is through blockchain.

“One way that could be introduced is through the private sector, probably even before government, through blockchain,” Schiff said.

The Philippines: The Beginning of the Golden Digital Era

The Philippines is on the brink of a “golden digital era”, fueled by the National Digital Transformation Strategy that is now being rolled out across the country. Government agencies, in partnership with private companies like nChain, are doubling down on efforts to digitize the Philippines as it catches up with the rest of the world. At the London Blockchain Conference 2023, a Philippine delegation presented the latest developments happening in the country.

Edwin Ligot, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Development and Management at the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), talks about the importance of a digital economy – as it will increase the social resilience of the people of the Philippines. Ligot says DICT is focused on several key areas: digital access, digital innovation and infrastructure, and digital government.

Incidentally, 2 June marks the launch of the eGov PH super app—a one-stop shop platform for public services that will streamline processes and transactions in the country.

The province of Bataan is also making a digital transformation through blockchain technology, and Vice Governor Ma. Cristina Garcia took the stage with Kara Hererra and Joseph Silvino Pagdanganan to showcase the province’s blockchain program.

“As a government, this is really new for us. This is a great opportunity for us to understand the other side of the coin – the private sector. It really makes a big difference for us to be here and see it for ourselves, Garcia told CoinGeek on the sidelines of the event.

Presents real-world use cases for blockchain technology

Day 3 continues to spotlight projects that leverage blockchain technology to solve the real-world problem. Houman Haddad is the Head of Emerging Technologies at the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) and also the founder of WFP’s “Building Blocks”, a project that uses blockchain technology to increase humanitarian aid.

“Building Blocks is a value transfer system that can be used by multiple humanitarian organizations and people seeking help to better coordinate and record the transfer of cash to where it is needed,” Haddad said.

Vaionex’s Robin Gounder introduced TimeSeal, a tool that allows users to create blockchain apps in minutes. Do you remember the record 86 million transactions on the BSV blockchain? Gounder says the key to setting that record, and several similar records, goes beyond regular payment transactions – they can also be smart contracts, micropayments, stablecoin payments.

“To create real utility, we can’t ask companies to join our blockchain platform. We have to do it the other way around: we have to go to the tools they already use,” Gounder said.

Meanwhile, Tokenovate CEO Richard Baker and SmartLedger Chief Development Officer Greg Ward introduced WEB3C02.NET, a blockchain sustainability index that aims to deliver a complete picture of the energy efficiency of digital asset projects.

And then there’s Trace, the blockchain-powered application built by Gate2Chain in partnership with IBM that enables the creation and tracking of “digital twins” across not only the supply chain, but also the distribution chain. The Trace app was first showcased at the invite-only media dinner at Searcy’s at the Gherkin, where it was used to capture the origin, traceability and proof of quality of a menu ingredient on the blockchain.

“We believe that a solution like Trace can drive trust and traceability across all industries. Trust and traceability are becoming more and more important as the world pushes for more sustainability and a circular economy, said Jessica Jaume, Operations and Business Development Manager at Gate2Chain.

Stephan Nilsson, CEO and co-founder of UNISOT, and Torje Vingen Sunde, CTO of Abendum, also demonstrated SignOnChain.id, a digital signing app on the BSV blockchain.

Over at the technical stage, two code-along sessions took place on how to build a BSV blockchain-powered app: first with Project Babbage’s Ty Everett and Brayden Langley on how to build a BSV blockchain-powered app, and another with sCrypts Xiaohui Liu , Vaionex’s Robin Gounder, and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Exeter Business School, Dr Jack Rogers.

The conference concludes with a keynote presentation by nChain Chief Scientist Dr. Craig, who discusses how businesses can – and should – leverage blockchain to improve business efficiency while reducing costs.

“Here’s the point, you don’t disrupt industries by disrupting Walmart. If you want to disrupt the world and provide opportunity, focus on those who need it most,” said Dr. Wright. “We have a world of 8 billion people, and they most of us aren’t in the west and most of us don’t have automation, so if we don’t build it for other people, they won’t have these systems… do it, we don’t have to do it cheap, plain and simple. Simple matters.”

So why are you here?

For many of the attendees, the London Blockchain Conference offers eye-opening discussions – both on stage and on the exhibition floors – about how to drive innovation through blockchain technology.

“Coming from a third world country, adopting blockchain technology is an eye opener for us because digitization is on another level, especially here in the UK. There is a digital divide between the Philippines and these countries, Pagdanganan told CoinGeek. “Participating in this blockchain conference in London and adopting this technology in the Philippines will help us catch up with the rest of the world.”

Christian Pulmano, head of the Blockchain Lab at Ateneo de Manila University, sees the benefits of gaining exposure to the innovation by attending the sessions and seeing what people in the industry are doing, and more importantly, how they are doing it.

“We get this exposure and we can take that and share with our students, assimilate that they are doing these initiatives in their own industries,” Pulmano said. “It can serve as a starting point for our students as well.”

Ben Wung, who introduced his new live streaming platform Haura built on the BSV blockchain, said he couldn’t miss the opportunity to come to the London Blockchain Conference – all the way from New Zealand.

“All the problems we face while developing on Ethereum have been solved by BSV,” Wung tells CoinGeek. “I remember people saying build on Tier 2 because you got low gas taxes; when we did that, we built a project on Polygon and then we launched and the whole network got overloaded. It was just overcrowded and we can’t do anything.”

For fintech students Nischal Shrestha, Henry Durojaye and Festus Babatunde Adefemi, the three-day conference gave them the confidence to explore blockchain technology and contribute to the ecosystem.

“Before now, it was just an idea for me, and I didn’t know when and how to apply blockchain to my ideas. With this conference, I am confident of coming up with ideas that I can match with blockchain,” Adefemi said.

“I came from a fintech background and our company is developing a product and we have an issue regarding security and I came to this event and they’ve been talking about it. Luckily for me, I met someone who provided the solution for us – I’m very, very happy. I am overwhelmed,” Durojaye said.

“I had no prior knowledge of blockchain, but networking with industry experts was something very important for me to understand the technology and also the different products and services that run in the blockchain environment,” said Shrestha.

Watch the recordings of the three-day London Blockchain Conference for free here.

Day 1 Highlights: Monetization with blockchain technology

width=”562″ height=”315″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”>

Day 2 Highlights: Reducing risk and improving trust with blockchain

width=”562″ height=”315″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”>

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeks Bitcoin for beginners section, the ultimate resource guide for learning more about Bitcoin – originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto – and blockchain.