The Shenzhen based Bitkan further cemented their role within the growing Bitcoin community in China by organising a private event in Shanghai. They have become more and more prevalent within the community after Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain invested $1.6 million dollars into Bitkan to develop an OTC trading platform and making an appearance at the recent International Blockchain Summit in Beijing.
The jam packed event organised in the heart of Pudong at IC café aimed to inform attendees about Bitcoin, Blockchain and overall trends. High profile speakers included Bitkan Founder Edward Liu, BTCC CEO Bobby Lee, Head of Operations at BTC Media John Riggins, Onchain CEO Da Hongfei and Decent Foundation CEO Matej Michalko.
Before the event started, a violinist played a few songs giving an overall sense of a warm welcome that really fitted well with the style of the young trendy cafe.
Bitkan Founder Edward Liu started off proceedings introducing Bitkan by explaining the value proposition behind Bitkan and the simple process of buying Bitcoins on their platform. Whilst mentioning the easiness of buying Bitcoin, he delved into the security functions behind the platform. He touched on how the fact that their platform is intended for the OTC market and are targeting a niche group of customers. He emphasized that although they are not competing with the popular exchanges, they are providing a service to those who are reluctant to go through the verification process of a Bitcoin exchange. With Bitkan all you’ll need to provide is a few details and you’re good to go. As two types of users exist on BitKan - one is the ‘trader’, the other ‘general’, the latter as a target audience is far and wide hoping to attract those who have been traditionally excluded by the banking sector and who may find it easier to buy Bitcoins on the Bitkan platform. Before finishing up, he talked about the increasing popularity of the Bitcoin OTC market, stating that the USD OTC market for Bitcoins was by far the largest compared to its peers.
Bobby Lee discussed how Bitcoin is well and truly a digital asset and not so much a currency. Although Bitcoin is often misunderstood by the masses and complicated for many, Bobby explained that the real value that is allowed to be transacted through Bitcoin is what gives it the digital asset stamp. As he puts it, the global nature, the fixed supply, the very low fees and its decentralized characteristics are what make Bitcoin valuable. Touching on Bitcoin vs. Blockchain and which is more important, Bobby argues that Bitcoin is more important than Blockchain and without Bitcoin, there would be no Blockchain. With the more blockchains people are creating, in particular the private ones, Bobby believes that these are not positive and these ventures have a big chance of failing.
John Riggins of BTC Media, the venture that owns the well-established Bitcoin Magazine, shared the U.S. perspective on the Bitcoin and Blockchain ecosystem in China. In his presentation, he highlighted the fact that 70% of the Bitcoin mining operations happen in China and the implications this may possibly have. These implications, from the U.S. perspective, are that although the world needs China to drive growth, this creates a fear of too much reliance on the Chinese market. In addition, he states, that because the Chinese miners have the largest collective power over software changes, there is a fear that the government could exert control over mining companies. In regards to the Blockchain view of China, the U.S. perspective is that China has a chance to be the leader because of increased investments made by corporates and venture capitalists in the Chinese ecosystem. In fact, John argues, the largest Blockchain only VC’s is in China and they are making investments all over the world. These bullish sentiments are further supported by the fact that there are increasing investments from large Chinese companies. John also announced that BTC Media will be opening an office in Shanghai very soon, which is an indication of the increasing dedication there is to cover the growing Chinese market.
The last two speakers provided an overview of their ventures. Da Hongfei of Onchain, explained the open source Antshares Blockchain they have built. Digital asset solutions is at the core of what they do and their mission is to help everyone trade digital assets and to be able to store them on a Blockchain and not just be limited to only doing so with Bitcoins. These digital assets comprise of the following three: system assets (their platform’s Antshares and ant coins), legal assets and trust assets. Da Hongfei went into more technical detail explaining how smart contracts and proof of stake will work on their system.
A totally different application of what the Blockchain could do was provided by Decent Foundation. Their Blockchain content distribution platform aims to create a system of digital content distribution in which the communication flow is secured by the Blockchain. By citing the problems of centralized digital content distribution, they aim to build a system that ensures publishers, creators and the like can build a lifetime reputation on the Blockchain. This will be a very interesting technology to watch out for as they could compete with Amazon and Netflix.
It was a very interesting event, one of first of many in my opinion for Bitkan. The balance between English and Chinese was appropriate and the prize draw was a nice touch as prizes consisted of Blcokchain reading material. I felt that event was both professional in dealings and vibrant in action. As Bitkan is still quite a young company, run by young people, I felt the entrepreneurial drive and attitude from the hosts. This also reflected in the seemingly young attendees who did not hesitate questioning the panelists and thus the environment was great for networking. Among the vibrant audience there were key members of the [Suspicious link removed]munity such as Shanghai based Viewfin Blockchain and Hong Kong based Bitcoin security trading platform BitMex. More events like this will keep happening in Shanghai I believe, as the community keeps getting bigger.
Link below are photos of the event!
http://imgur.com/a/xN7xp
