What’s good at Baltic Honeybadger 18?
In the times when only the lazy don’t talk about cryptocurrencies, it gets harder and harder to meet audience who actually understand the technology backing Bitcoin and its value.
Back in 2013, the rooms of crypto-events (such as “InsideBitcoins” held in Berlin, London) were filled with dedicated mathematicians, hardcore cryptographers and civil rights activists unlike the conferences today. cryptocurrencies quickly became one of the hottest topics out there with a positive influence on awareness & adoption. On the other hand, the growing hype and speculative interests led the majority of such events to focus not on actual technology and its revolutionary potential, but on financial gains, spikes, loses, ICOs and trading. Not saying whether it’s good or bad as our product is actually building the bridge between these two: technology and finance, but it’s different.
The fact is that now it’s much more difficult to find the tech-savvy libertarian atmosphere than 4–5 years ago. So you can imagine a surprise bestowed upon us when I found out that one of the most community-oriented crypto-events was happening just 3 hours drive from our Vilnius office in Riga, Latvia. A decision was made — myself, our Product owner Šarūnas and Danielius from sales are attending.
Baltic Honeybadger is a conference like no other because of its focus on the actual tech behind cryptocurrency. Organised by the peer-to-peer exchange HodlHodl, we would say it gathered the best minds in cryptography, Blockchain and cryptocurrencies from across the world. Every panel discussion was definitely worth attention featuring names such as Adam Back, Eric Voskuil and Elizabeth Stark.
The latter, Elizabeth Stark, CEO & co-founder of Lightning Labs, one of the main personas behind Lightning Network protocol. She gave a profound speech why Lightning Network is becoming the next big thing. CoinGate featured by her on stage!
Just a month ago, CoinGate payment gateway was the first to enable Lightning Bitcoin payments to thousands of merchants. I strongly believe it’s the tech that will introduce Bitcoin as a conventional payment method to millions of users. If you are keen to know more about Lightning Network check our blog or the resources on Lightning Labs website.
Among other great panels were Bitfury presentation about micropayments and Coinmetrics blockchain data analysis and statistics. By the way, the latter is a great tool for those who are into statistical analysis and would like to see the historical data for various cryptocurrencies. However, they considered only two payment processors for merchant data analysis that might be lacking to draw a full picture. I hope to reach with Nic Carter to have our statistics in their insight as well.
No surprise that scaling remains to be the major topic for all crypto-enthusiasts. While some still believe in on-chain transactions, the majority agrees that sidechains and Lightning Network is the future for Bitcoin. It was really a great pleasure to meet Adam Back, the CEO of Blockstream, a profound member of Bitcoin development. Also had a chat over a cup of coffee with CEO of Bitrefill, Sergey Kotliar. These guys were on the front-line to implement Lightning Network in the beginning of 2018, they made it happen before all the others including ourselves. I take my hat off to that -always a great pleasure to meet like-minded people, who stay true to Bitcoin values.
Baltic Honeybadger was definitely one of the most technology-oriented crypto-events, but it definitely had a great vibe! The space was filled with the brightest minds who were open to learn from each other. I had a great time talking to Francis Pouliot who noted the simplicity of CoinGate’s invoice UX. He is the guy behind Bylls, Bitcoin Payment Service in Canada that eliminates the need for fiat use. Also, it was a pleasure to chat with a great expert in blockchains, PhD, Pavel Kravchenko. He just released his book on Blockchain Systems that I made sure to pre-order (with signature of course). Soon, it will be released in the English language, so check it out when it does!
Surprisingly, I’ve stumbled upon a few CoinGate users and it was a great experience to hear from them. The Twitter user, @hodlonaut, was one of the first to make a purchase with our Lightning Network feature and he was very positive about it. Also, I’ve had a chance to meet a co-founder of FamaTools.com, a company that accepts cryptocurrencies with CoinGate payment gateway. It is always very pleasant to get reviews about our services, and even more it gets to hear from true crypto-enthusiasts.
Baltic Honeybadger was definitely one of the best events my team and I have visited recently. It was full of new ideas, bringing true Bitcoin values in the spotlight. While the agenda included the greatest minds in Blockchain and cryptocurrencies, the audience was no less proficient in the topic. So little time, so much to learn — let’s meet next year, Baltic Honeybadger!
In the meantime subscribe to my Twitter to follow me and CoinGate team at the upcoming events.