The London Blockchain Conference offers a vision for the future – and the path to actually get there

Having covered the digital asset industry for several years now, I can confidently say that I have never seen anything quite like the London Blockchain Conference 2023 (LBC 2023).

Held at the Queen Elizabeth II Center in central London, the event was three days of product launches, ambitious presentations, groundbreaking keynote speakers and thought-leading panel discussions, all on different topics but with one thing in common: a focus on the impact blockchain technology is having on business right now.

You’ve probably heard a similar pitch before. It is certainly not the first blockchain conference, nor is it the first time the world has heard about the ambitions of the blockchain or the work the companies are doing to realize them. But what set LBC 2023 apart was how close those aspirations felt to reality: indeed, LBC 2023 was the first time it felt like blockchain technology had arrived.

First, those who had the most ambitious and exciting things to say about blockchain technology were not the marketers or even hoodies: they were faces from the most respectable organizations in the world, people who can already see the role blockchain will play in. business and society going forward. These are people like Lars Jacob Boe, senior partner at Bain Norway, who gave a keynote speech on the development of Web3 and the impact that transformative technology – as the only source of truth offered by blockchain – has on the financial sector. Partners from IBM’s blockchain team presented Trace, a blockchain platform that enables the creation of “digital twins” of physical goods for superior supply chain tracking. Or how about Houman Haddad, head of emerging technologies at the UN’s World Food Programme, who spoke about how blockchain is helping the program create fairer outcomes for those who need it most.

But perhaps more revealing than the evangelists’ hiss was the caution of the moderates. The agenda was packed with speakers and discussions advocating for careful and comprehensive regulation of digital assets and blockchain. Yves Mersch, member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and former Governor of the Central Bank of Luxembourg, gave the opening address on the second day, examining the various legal frameworks being implemented across the EU to govern the industry. Mersch’s keynote was followed by a panel discussion with Hollywood actor-turned-economist-turned-blockchain critic Ben McKenzie, where everyone on stage largely agreed that regulation needs to come to the industry for its own good.

The opening keynote for the final day was made by Peter Schiff, who you probably know primarily for his time battling the BTC hypemen on Twitter: Schiff, outspoken as he has been about the worthless BTC, probably surprised a few in the audience with recognizes that a scalable, low-cost blockchain is not only desirable, but necessary to reinstate gold as the foundation of the global monetary system. See what surprises you can get when you expand your horizons beyond the people who just want you to HODL?

It was this determination of LBC 2023, not only to entertain the more skeptical and cautious voices in the industry, but to give them top billing, that set the event apart from its contemporaries, and is likely to continue to do so going forward. Reading between the lines of the agenda, this was the core point of the entire conference: the technology to transform the world exists and in many cases is already on the market. What will it take for the rest of the world to realize that? The conference had the answer: management, regulation, compliance and, most importantly, scalability.

The effect this had on the mood of the conference was obvious. Anyone who’s been to one of these events before is likely to have come away with the overwhelming feeling that they’ve just been hammered for eight hours, sold an ideology or an aesthetic.

LBC 2023, on the other hand, dared to let utility speak for itself without being afraid to reign in unbridled enthusiasm by focusing on the wave of regulation already well under way and offering a path for nascent blockchain technology to work alongside the law. This is certainly a more concrete path to mass adoption than anything you’re likely to find back in Miami at the BTC 2023 conference by comparison.

As a result, attending LBC 2023’s many technical and business-focused sessions felt like participating in a real conversation about the future with the adults of the world.

This feeling was only reinforced by everything that happened outside the two stages of the conference. For LBC 2023 was far bigger than the demonstrations and discussions that took place on stage: in total the conference took up three full floors. The first floor was a networking area, with a space carved out for the event’s many celebrity speakers to have a moment of peace before taking the stage. The second floor was pure exhibition space, with booths from the likes of block reward miner GorillaPool and innovative legal experts Velitor Law, all with their own stories to tell about the industry. The third floor featured the event’s business and tech stages, as well as a large networking area and even more exhibitor booths from nChain, Gate2Chain, ONTIER and more.

Perhaps it is too difficult to convey this to an industry outsider. If so, let me try to put it in a way that anyone who has attended business conferences will undoubtedly understand: the room for the last session of the conference was as packed as the opening on the first day, which is the eternal and rare. -Meet targets of success for these multi-day events.

Yes, sitting on the last session on the agenda – a typically specific but no less relevant speech by Dr. Craig Wright on how blockchain can improve inventory management and just-in-time processes – for the first time in a long time, blockchain technology seems to move forward at pace. Achieving this at a time when coverage of digital assets and blockchain is negatively skewed is no small ask, but LBC 2023 managed it by focusing on the impact it has already had on business today without ignoring that mass adoption is not possible without scalability and legal compliance.

Who knows where we’ll be this time next year?

See highlights of Day 1: Monetization with blockchain technology

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See highlights of Day 2: Reduce risk and improve trust with blockchain

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See highlights of Day 3: Driving innovation, competitiveness with blockchain

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