Consensus 2017 has been a great conference with some key announcements and great panels. I hope everyone got to learn a lot because I sure did. Many of the discussions were brilliant. I wanted to share the two that I look forward to on Day 3:
Academic Workshop: Research, Education and Partnerships with Industry: 9:00-10:45 AM EST
This discussion by academics from 6 leading universities including Cornell and Duke is a must watch. The discussion about how to build a new generation of blockchain experts will be very intriguing. I also cannot wait to hear about research projects that they have taken up and continue to work on. Campbell Harvey from Duke teaches a wonderful course called "Innovation and Cryptoventures" and is a real pleasure to hear from. I can't wait to hear about what he's up to.
Building Digital Asset Infrastructure: 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST
This seems to be a session with a ton of panels in a row. The group I'm most excited to see is Interoperability and New Assets. Representatives from ShapeShift, ZCash, and Ripple surely could steal the day. Getting to hear about the release of PRISM by ShapeShift, giving traders the ability to basically own derivatives pegged to real assets without ever trading their base coin is a good way to begin solving our problem of currency pairs not existing on exchanges. Soon we'll be able to pair whatever we desire. ZCash also just put a zero security layer over their Quorum platform to enhance security and aid with the settlement of transactions. I'd like to hear if they are up to anything else or have some plans for ZEC to be involved in something new as well. Ripple's consortium of Japanese bank backers is always another interesting topic, however, I'd like to hear more about why it is preferable to other similar options in the space.
It should be a fun day again. I will be viewing both of these, and if anyone wants to discuss, feel free to comment. I'll try to post links if I can find them tomorrow. Feel free to follow as well if you want to continue seeing my posts and discussing these topics. Thanks guys.