# Conference 27 April 'Blockchain - a new frontier for freedom, tech and investment.'



## Brendan Burgess (6 Apr 2018)

Exciting half day meeting to be held by Hibernia Forum entitled 'Blockchain - a new frontier for freedom, tech and investment.'

Date 27 April
Time: 9am to 1 pm.
Venue: Taxback/Transfermate on 14 St Stephen's Green.


Speakers include :

Philip Saunders, Irish tech innovator based in Prague. 

Julio Alejandro, public speaker and founder of three blockchain companies 

Fiona Delaney, creator of Origin Chain, a blockchain project recently shortlisted for French Tech Ireland award. https://www.linkedin.com/in/fgdelaney/

Jeffrey Peel, Quadriga Consulting https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trust-blockchain-jeff-peel/

Mai Santamaria, Senior Financial Adviser, Department of Finance  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mai07/

- Mai has just produced a paper on this area for the Department of Finance http://paschaldonohoe.ie/minister-d...virtual-currencies-and-blockchain-technology/


The idea is to focus on the humanitarian potential of this great new innovation, but also on the business and investment opportunities.It would be great if you could join us, in what should be a most interesting and informative discussion.


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Apr 2018)

I attended this conference.

There were three speakers in the first session:

Julio Alejandro 9.40 – 10.10 –  The European and global scene

Philip Saunders 10.15 – 10.45  The Zone Protocol: Mapping the world on Ethereum

Fiona Delaney 10.45- 11.05  Origin Chain: a case study and specific start up

*Julio *was a very charismatic speaker and has been described as "The Leonardo da Vinci of Fintech":.  He did not have slides.  It was real Freeman/Libertarian stuff.  He has a a right to buy anything from anybody anywhere in the World and no one has a right to stop him. He has a right to put anything he wants into his body and no government has the right to tell him not to. He has not signed any social contract - he wanted to see a copy of it.  The Nation State = Violence.  We should return to where we were 200 years ago before the industrial revolution - a period of great personal freedom.  He will only accept being a member of an "intentional community" not the "state which is causing violence"

I thought initially that I  had misunderstood him. But it got more and more outrageous, so he was actually saying these things. I was first to speak after the session finished and let fly. I told Julio that I did not want to be rude to a visitor but he was talking "nonsense".  Utter "nonsense".  I told the Chairman that, while not a member of the Hibernian Forum, I was a supporter and I considered that "nonsense" like this would damage the reputation of the Hibernia Forum.  I didn't actually use the word "nonsense" - I was more forthright to such an extent that the Chairman intervened and told me to stop swearing.

Julio was asked to respond and just said he is a director of a company worth $86m and had lectured to the United Nations, EU, University of Cambridge and Google. "next question please".

If you want to annoy yourselves, you can watch a paper he gave here in December.

"Bitcoin is a political ideology... a movement of people...a tool used against state violence."
Satoshi shows us that "this is not white people inventions. This is a different This post will be deleted if not edited immediately Christ that was not born in the Middle East"
"The foundation of Bitcoin, apart from its White Paper, it is "Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities" written by Tim May in 1994"
"Bitcoin eliminates martyrdom" 
"The left steals from you in terms of taxes - by putting a gun to your head"
"Governments should not poke into our affairs - we are talking about basic rights. Not human rights but natural rights which would be secured through technology "

To be fair to him, he does not mean the anarchy of throwing stones, he means "anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-communism, Anarcho-transhumanism, anarcho-primitivism and anarcho-feminism"

The next speaker from the floor who I think might have been a blockchain investor said that his blood was boiling during the talk and he was glad that someone else agreed. He had been worried that he was the only one present who disagreed with Julio. He had looked around the room and assumed from the faces that everyone agreed with Julio.

The third speaker  from the floor who was a blockchain developer and early adopter of Bitcoin agreed with me as well.

Unfortunately *Philip Saunders *spoke without slides as well.  He is doing something with Ehereum and the Blockchain for the land registry in a South American country.   It went over my head but sounded impressive.

*Fiona Delaney* did have slides and I have asked her for a copy. She has a start-up  https://www.originchain.eu/ which is using the blockchain to bolster anti-counterfeit measures for branded goods. It ties in merchandise, members and sponsors in membership based groups.  Her case study was Bohemians Football Club. One example would be that members and supporters would be able to use the blockchain to sponsor a player of their choice.  The players with a strong social media presence were enthusiastic, but the rest were not. There was also a potential conflict with the sponsors, a betting company.

Another very good use of the blockchain was that the coaches and other adults working with children in their Junior Academy could register their Garda Clearance Certificate on the blockchain. I suggested that this was a misuse of something which should be free of all government intervention. Surely any adult should be free to work with children without Big Brother checking if they were suitable or not?


Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Apr 2018)

These slides from Fiona's presentation might help you to understand it better.


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Apr 2018)

The second session was

*The response of Government and banking, and investment possibilities. *

*Mai Santamaria, *Senior Financial Adviser, Department of Finance with speciality in crypto and blockchain https://www.linkedin.com/in/mai07/  
Mai heads the team that recently produced an Irish Government paper on this http://www.finance.gov.ie/wp-conten...cies-and-Blockchain-Technology-March-2018.pdf
I was sitting beside Mai during the first session and a few people had told her how good her paper was, so I was looking forward to hearing it.  She was a very good speaker. Told us about how she was not a technologist (4 times.) . How she had come to Ireland 20 years ago and worked in banking. She joined the NTMA some years ago and was seconded to the Department of Finance. She then showed us the Organisation Chart for the Department of Finance. She explained senior officials were going to meetings in Ireland and abroad where these developments were being discussed and they knew nothing. She knew nothing about it either as "I am not a technologist". She then did up a plan for doing a paper and had one to one meetings with a lot of people and then... her time was up.  Bizarre stuff. I had really looked forward to the content of the briefing paper but it was just about how the civil service works.



*Philip Kinlen, *specialist at AIB on blockchain and artificial intelligence. Background in applied maths, previously worked for investment banks in Hong Kong, Tokyo and London.

I have separate posts on his contributions: 

 The problems with Bitcoin

R3 and Corda

*Jeffrey Peel,* Quadriga Consulting and developer of blockchain business workshops.

Video here of a Jeff masterclass (password: quadrigamc) with presentations from Diego Zuluaga of the IEA and Daniel Lacalle, Libertarian economist: http://quadrigaconsulting.co.uk/ind...ckchain-masterclass-london-october-12/videos/

Very interesting. He has invested in a few different blockchain startups. He said that there was no mystique.  He wanted to see a revenue stream and potential profits.  He spoke about two companies he was involved in.

Cashaa  which allows people in Britain send money over Ethereum to people in India. Apparently sterling is transferred to Ethereum. The guy in India gets Ethereum which he changes into Rupees. While it's peer to peer, they do seem to have to use an agent in India. (Julio intervened here to say that Cashaa was not trustworthy.)

The other business is an Irish startup whose client is the UNHCR. They scan the irises of refugees and use the blockchain for them to be allocated money for their spending needs. The refugees go into a shop and the shopkeeper scans their irises to know how much credit they have

Brendan


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## Gus1970 (30 Apr 2018)

Hey Brendan thanks for the report. I am still i hospital and could not attend, so your post gave me some context



Brendan Burgess said:


> *Julio *was a very charismatic speaker and has been described as "The Leonardo da Vinci of Fintech":. He did not have slides. It was real Freeman/Libertarian stuff. He has a a right to buy anything from anybody anywhere in the World and no one has a right to stop him. He has a right to put anything he wants into his body and no government has the right to tell him not to. He has not signed any social contract - he wanted to see a copy of it. The Nation State = Violence. We should return to where we were 200 years ago before the industrial revolution - a period of great personal freedom. He will only accept being a member of an "intentional community" not the "state which is causing violence"



I know Julio quite well and having read your messages in this forum before, I can only imagine how much his thought might have raised your blood pressure.



Brendan Burgess said:


> I thought initially that I had misunderstood him. But it got more and more outrageous, so he was actually saying these things. I was first to speak after the session finished and let fly. I told Julio that I did not want to be rude to a visitor but he was talking "nonsense". Utter "nonsense". I told the Chairman that, while not a member of the Hibernian Forum, I was a supporter and I considered that "nonsense" like this would damage the reputation of the Hibernia Forum. I didn't actually use the word "nonsense" - I was more forthright to such an extent that the Chairman intervened and told me to stop swearing.



Julio is an crypto-anarchist, has his ideas, disruptive ideas, not everybody buys into them, but as a human being has the same right to speak as me and you. 
Why couldn't you follow the normal costume of raising your hand and asking a question?  

I often speak at conferences, what you did is called harassment, it is frowned upon by everybody, speakers and attendees. In the conferences I organise, we employ a code of conduct, similar to the rules in your forum, I am pretty sure you understand why they are out there. The one i use is http://confcodeofconduct.com/

I am impressed with the chairman for asking you to stop harassing the speaker, they probably follow the same code of conduct as we do.

If you are an attendee, you are allowed to ask questions on what was discussed to expand the conversation, but certainly not to harass the speakers. The reasons, if not clear, are that one person feels threatened and the other attendees feel uneasy about wasting time with people ranting.

If you want to speak for longer at a conference on bitcoin, here's the recipe, submit an abstract and get selected. Swearing at the speaker is not the way to go. If I was the speaker I would have asked the chair to have you removed. Wouldn't that be similar to when you rightly delete my messages to your forum for being off topic or for containing bad language.



Brendan Burgess said:


> Julio was asked to respond and just said he is a director of a company worth $86m and had lectured to the United Nations, EU, University of Cambridge and Google. "next question please".



Julio was rude in this case, but, maybe, only maybe, he was slightly triggered by somebody shouting swear words publicly at him, not sure if I can blame him?



Brendan Burgess said:


> "Bitcoin is a political ideology... a movement of people...a tool used against state violence."
> Satoshi shows us that "this is not white people inventions. This is a different This post will be deleted if not edited immediately Christ that was not born in the Middle East"
> "The foundation of Bitcoin, apart from its White Paper, it is "Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities" written by Tim May in 1994"



Some very valid points IMHO. Shall we discuss? 

I never heard of any of the other speakers, so I can only thank you for the commentary.

May Satoshi be with you,

Gus


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Apr 2018)

Gus1970 said:


> Why couldn't you follow the normal costume of raising your hand and asking a question?



That is exactly what I did. 

I did not interrupt him. I was tempted to answer some of his rhetorical questions, but resisted. 

The guy was speaking rubbish, total unmitigated rubbish.  And I told him so.  There was no harassment whatsoever.  



Gus1970 said:


> the other attendees feel uneasy about wasting time with people ranting.



You are quite right.  The other attendees felt very uneasy about Julio's ranting. My challenge to his rant made them realise that they were not on their own and they were comfortable challenging it afterwards. 

On reflection, it was not a waste of time.  It gave me an insight into the woolly thinking of some Bitcoin enthusiasts. And there were two other Bitcoin enthusiasts who seemed very level-headed. 

Brendan


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## Gordon Gekko (30 Apr 2018)

Well done Brendan.

The more I read and see about this stuff, the more I realise that it’s about Freeman anarchy and criminality circumventing rules and regulations. 

Which is why it is doomed to fail.

Plus most anarchists inevitably grow up and become functioning members of society.


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Apr 2018)

Gordon Gekko said:


> The more I read and see about this stuff, the more I realise that it’s about Freeman anarchy and criminality circumventing rules and regulations.



If I had only heard the first guy speak, I would have left with that view.  But as I said:



Brendan Burgess said:


> And there were two other Bitcoin enthusiasts who seemed very level-headed.



These guys want to use blockchain technology to provide a service and to make money. 

I have no idea whether Julio or they are more representative of the community.

Brendan


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## Gordon Gekko (30 Apr 2018)

Hi Brendan,

There’s something in the Blockchain technology, I agree.

But the Bitcoin currency stuff is a scam built on a rather odious mixture of faux anarchy, bullsh1t, and criminality.

Fair play to you for attending.

Gordon


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## tecate (30 Apr 2018)

Gordon Gekko said:


> Well done Brendan.
> 
> The more I read and see about this stuff, the more I realise that it’s about Freeman anarchy and criminality circumventing rules and regulations.
> 
> ...


You 'realise'  incorrectly and it is inherently wrong to suggest crypto is synonymous with a Freeman ideology.  This is the first time that I've heard of such a pronouncement but then, every other effort at tar and feathering it has been made...why not this.

The reality is that a hell of a lot of people have an interest in crypto now to some degree or other.  They don't all share the same fundamental beliefs.


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## tecate (30 Apr 2018)

Gordon Gekko said:


> But the Bitcoin currency stuff is a scam built on a rather odious mixture of faux anarchy, bullsh1t, and criminality.


I don't have any problem with you expressing the opinion that you see nothing tangible in it (although not my view).  However, on the 'scam', you're absolutely wrong.  I'd suggest you look at how bitcoin came into existence and how it functions now.  Then recheck the definition of a scam.  You can't square those two items.


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## Gus1970 (30 Apr 2018)

Brendan Burgess said:


> That is exactly what I did.
> 
> I did not interrupt him. I was tempted to answer some of his rhetorical questions, but resisted.
> The guy was speaking rubbish, total unmitigated rubbish. And I told him so. There was no harassment whatsoever.



It doesn't matter whether you agree with him or not, he is expressing his opinion and he has earned the right to do so the moment that he was included in the program. You on the other hand have no right to insult a speaker because you disagree with his ideas. 
That's clearly harassment, bullying. If you do that at one of my conferences you're out of the door.

You seem to confuse a debate with an attack. Telling somebody he is talking rubbish in a public place is an attack, full stop. On the other hand you are allowed to express your thought in a way that clarifies how Julio was talking This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language. That's called debate. It is not harassment or an attack.

I mean, you came here and proudly told us you insulted the man swearing at him, you are proud of it, I'm not making it up.



Brendan Burgess said:


> You are quite right. The other attendees felt very uneasy about Julio's ranting. My challenge to his rant made them realise that they were not on their own and they were comfortable challenging it afterwards.



People that invest time to go to a crypto conference are more likely to want to hear from Julio than you, they saw his name on the program, not yours, they decided to go for him not you. Did you think about this? Maybe you should, next time.



Brendan Burgess said:


> On reflection, it was not a waste of time. It gave me an insight into the woolly thinking of some Bitcoin enthusiasts. And there were two other Bitcoin enthusiasts who seemed very level-headed.



Maybe I didn't express myself properly (English is my second/third language), but what i meant earlier is that the audience wasted their precious time listening to you swearing abuse at the speaker, not the other way around. I hope I have clarified this little misunderstanding.

Best Regards,

Gus


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## Gus1970 (30 Apr 2018)

Gordon Gekko said:


> But the Bitcoin currency stuff is a scam built on a rather odious mixture of faux anarchy, bullsh1t, and criminality.



If it is a scam, please do your citizens and the world a service, go to the police with all your evidence and and get us all arrested.

I am here waiting for them to knock, not holding my breath.

Regards,

Gus


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## TheBigShort (30 Apr 2018)

Did any of these people mention anythng about bitcoin?

*Mai Santamaria, *Senior Financial Adviser, Department of Finance with speciality in crypto and blockchain
*Philip Kinlen, *specialist at AIB on blockchain and artificial intelligence. Background in applied maths, previously worked for investment banks in Hong Kong, Tokyo and London.
*Jeffrey Peel,* Quadriga Consulting and developer of blockchain business workshops.


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Apr 2018)

TheBigShort said:


> Did any of these people mention anythng about bitcoin?



Yes, I summarised Mai's and Jeffrey's contributions in this post

I want to do a separate post about Philip's contribution as it was so interesting.  I am trying to get his slides to do him justice.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Apr 2018)

Gus1970 said:


> You on the other hand have no right to insult a speaker because you disagree with his ideas.



Hi Gus 

What do you do when someone goes on a long rant of total rubbish?

Brendan


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## Gus1970 (30 Apr 2018)

Brendan Burgess said:


> What do you do when someone goes on a long rant of total rubbish?



I walk out and go for a coffee


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