European Blockchain Conference 2022

I would like to thank the great organizers, speakers, and attendees I had the privilege of meeting and getting to know last week. It was a pleasure to see you all for our first in-person conference in far too long! Highlights included speakers such as Dani Marco, Catalan director general of innovation and digital economy. He shared specific and eye-opening data with us, such as how 30% of Catalan GDP is coming from the IT and crypto sectors – compared to approximately 15% from tourism. He explained the Catalan region’s goal of becoming a leading location in Europe for crypto projects. Mr. Marco explained his government’s commitment to leading the way in the crypto space and aiming towards opening up further for organizations and projects like ours. This was gratifying to hear, especially with our current subsidiary and pilot projects (our off-grid event space, environmental education, and renewable energy projects) with a foothold already established in Catalunya.

There was also some bumbling and silliness from some of the top exchanges and

financial companies who danced a line on why some institutions are not fully embracing and openly using blockchain technology. These speakers were vague about the merits of outdated and unfortunate systems like “SWIFT,” when talking about moving currencies securely and instantly around the globe. Some of those top finance and market-background speakers discussed crypto volatility, despite being all too new to the crypto sector. One can easily argue they not only live for crypto volatility, but are a huge cause of it. These are the same entities that officially stayed clear of crypto until the end of 2017 or later using that same argument. Thankfully, the presence of academics and experienced attendees and speakers

helped to balance their nonsense out. Those speakers made the case for embracing the overall goal of transparency and a better way forward that blockchain and crypto represents.

Regarding speakers, it was such a huge lift and pleasure to see and meet first hand

with the team from HIVE, out of Denmark. They are true innovators for green mining and putting better world practices in effect. HIVE is really an inspiring project, that truly resonates with Epidaurus’ ethos and goals. Of course, the conference was really all about the networking. I would just like to give a shout out and say that I’m looking forward to the prospective partnerships between Epidaurus and centralized exchanges like Coinstore, (for our Asia based customers) Eve Exchange (boutique subscription-based exchange), and Naga Exchange (a Greek-run company who sync well with our name.) Also worth mentioning are an advisor for TronDao and his business partner, the great team and president of Satoshi Art and founder of the upcoming media outlet GreatMoonshot. Thanks for making it a great few days!

Furthermore, meeting speakers from projects like MetaMask, KuCoin, Huobi, Distrikt, Unicoin, Coinbase, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Bit.com, Infinity Swap, and CoinMarketCap was a great pleasure. These are just a few of the standouts I recall from the fast-moving conference and panels. Despite being a decade since Bitcoin was introduced, crypto is still in the early days. The feeling of being behind the scenes of greatness was a palpable and prevalent part of the whole conference atmosphere.

Finally – bear markets are truly great time to build and grow together, which is our

ongoing focus at Epidaurus. This week, you can find me attending the 2022 L’Aquila

Blockchain Congress in person. We’ll be there from July 13th-15th in L’Aquila, the capitol of Abruzzo, Italy! Exciting updates to follow, so see you at the next one!