Events

Cryptocurrency traders of the world, unite!

The Crypto Conference that took place at Skolkovo Technopark left me with a very positive feeling after visiting it. It is worth noting that it was the first large crypto conference announced in Moscow, moreover, it was organized in the very right place. Easy access by private car, huge number of parking lots, transport logistics is running like clockwork and allows visitors to get anywhere in Skolkovo in a fast and comfort way. Even at the bus stop, SMS notification promised me free Wi-Fi access, but for some reason it did not work.

Skolkovo Technopark has properly prepared for this event – all visitors were invited in a huge, very light and solemn room, everything was modern and organised. Volunteers guided arriving guests to the right place. There were many young people and even schoolchildren on an excursion with their teachers, I was glad to see that younger generation is interested in the development of Russian innovations. In several transparent modules, there were organised thematic seminars for visitors who are thirsty for knowledge.

In the huge glass hall, in the depths of the Technopark there were a lot of visitors, and there was only one omission of the conference organizers on that day - it was terribly cold in the room where conference took place. Almost all guests, and this is more than 1000 people, were dressed in coats and jackets, well, at least they were not wearing hats. There was a kind of surreal feeling of the early 90's atmosphere, but in the 21st century, when it was a common case to switch off steam heating for non-payment. Anyway, visitors were warmed up by continuous flow of interesting and useful information, that was coming from invited professional cryptocurrency traders giving their speech from the big arena of a Crypto Conference. 

As I am new to technologies of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and ways of their using in a digital world, I got a lot of new information from this event. Professionals were not generous with their own predictions about the cryptocurrencies, but gave many vivid examples, including how to participate in cryptocurrency mining, and that perhaps BTC (bitcoin) exchange rate can reach the value of $ 1 million. However, they did not mention when it will happen. The process of cryptocurrency mining was also discussed. To be more precise, speakers told us not only about how simple miners manually extract crypts, but also how this process works for cryptocurrency bots who works automatically. At the same time, no one was going to share their secret ways of stable enrichment on young innovative field, the only advise was to collect the main cryptocurrencies in the pools of TOP-10 and TOP-20 and monitor their fluctuations in the month or quarter mode, or in the other accessible mode, periodically changing leaders and outsiders of crypts.

The conference also covered the topic of cryptocurrency indexes, as a more reliable way of investing in a product, as well as fears that if everything goes so fast with the development of mining, then in ten years greedy miners will use the electricity of the whole Planet. And such assumptions are not groundless, according to calculations the Bitcoin mining costs in 27 times more than all the transactions of the whole VISA payment system! By the way, the global statistics shows that it takes 4.69 TWh of electricity to extract Ethereum, and 14.54 TWh for Bitcoin. Thus, if miners of these two cryptocurrencies had their own state, it would take 71th place in terms of electricity consumption among all countries of the world.

It seems to me that the conference justified itself, in any case, I learned a lot of new and interesting things: from the use of new hardware for mining and what should be expected from it in the short-term period, to the fact that it is possible to predict the cryptocurrency rates only if you are God.

The Crypto Conference literally opened my eyes to what should I do with own innovative projects, if the Investors did not understand its core idea, but only insist on creating unique business strategies for your business, and only focused on endless calculation of mathematical models, minimizing risks to absolute zero with the expected multiple growth of future incomes and rapid capitalization of business. For such cases on the basis of blockchain, the ICO technology was created.

ICO professionals briefly described the technology of attracting investments into start-ups in terms of time and cost factors: from 2 weeks with own team at the price of its payroll, up to $ 1 million and several months of hard work at conferences, exhibitions and other fabulous events around the world for rich and lazy.

Unfortunately, I was not able to sit out the entire conference from start to finish because of my busy schedule, at the same day I had a meeting with the leader of "Nuclear and Space Technologies" cluster as Skolkovo resident in the framework of PJSC Intersoft Eurasia projects (http://intersofteurasia.ru). Nevertheless, after visiting Crypto Conference, the following general trends can be identified: 

• Mining is gaining momentum in Russia. Both like home-based mining on the balcony of private or rented apartment, and industrial-scale mining, where electricity is cheaper, until the government increases taxes for it.

• More and more private investors are shifting a part of the capital from traditional low-profit businesses to a high-margin, and therefore risky, cryptocurrency market. 

• It is impossible to ignore the high interest of start-ups in the ICO technologies. It is even does not matter what they are focused on: from the sand pit, to the new ways and technologies for the production of chips and sensors. 

At the end of the conference, I got the feeling that if do not interfere with the natural development of the cryptocurrency world, then it will start dramatically change ourselves and the world around us very soon. It is hard to predict would it be positive or negative changes, as it will depend on the person himself and all basic human values: morality, philosophy of the world view, the level of education and even the religion. Although, cryptocurrency religion is primarily focused on independence from anyone, a clear calculation and, of course, on excitement.

By the way, I enjoyed almost all the speeches and presentations, because they were versatile and cover relevant topics of the digital world. Perhaps, this was because I am still “rookie” in the world of cryptocurrency.

Nevertheless, the topics of discussions at the conference might suggest me to the thought that in the very near future the banking system should totally change and possibly the banking business would decentralize and move to the source of direct consumption of the cryptocurrency. At the same time, there will be a significant growth of the new type of netting in the IoT (Internet of things) world, and it is important to understand that IoT network would be much bigger than humanity as a whole. Generally, it is very exciting and impossible to foresee what should we expect from the future. 

On the sidelines of the Сrypto Сonference, I have learned that something like a “sandbox” for the ICO is emerging at Skolkovo Technopark, while all general government departments and services of the Russian Federation, from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation to our glorious service of tax collectors - the Federal Tax Service, will take part in this process. Moreover, Skolkovo supposed to reach the stage of signing legislative acts very quickly, almost by the middle of 2018. I even proposed to use my DO-RA project (http://do-ra.ru) for testing the domestic ICO. However, my positive impulse was stopped by competent colleagues who informed me that in the Russian legislation system such operations with ICO are illegal and can have a sad end, like imprisonment for up to 50 years in total counting. After this, the topic was somehow disappeared into thin air and my dreams were crushed. 

Conclusion: the state needs to become a part of the crypto world and its parts as soon as possible. This should include legal mining, cryptocurrency, ICO and other technologies. Such kind of strategy will allow us to preserve and protect our digital sovereignty, which is a theme to be discussed by many experts in our country almost since 2010.