The seventh edition of the Latin American Bitcoin & Blockchain Conference (laBITconf) came to an end the night of Friday 13 December in Montevideo, Uruguay, with a special focus on the current political situation, economic and social experiences of Latin america.In the second and final day of the event, which brought together more than 70 panelists from all over the world and hundreds of enthusiasts of Bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies, the discussions revolved around how, in the midst of this scenario, bitcoin is positioned as an alternative for millions of people in the region.During the development of panel discussion “How far are we from a revolution social and political?” Erik Voorhees, Andreas Antonopoulos, Stacy Herbert, Adam Back, Max Keiser and Peter McCormack discussed the new architecture of financial power, the reality of international politics and the influence of technology in the decisions of human beings.“The people with more courage, who is involved with bitcoin is people from countries in very bad conditions that have nothing to lose (…) I think that we in this scenario we are not qualified to talk about that,” he mused Antonopoulos, author of Mastering Bitcoin, Mastering Ethereum and the Internet of Money.On bitcoin, its penetration on a global scale and that continues to arouse interest, he added:
Every time you die, every time he fails to go away, every time someone asks Oh, bitcoin is still something? There is where we won (…) If you come to a country and you say to someone “I’ll give you this that is going to help revolutionize all” (…) makes us look like a bunch of strange ones that arrive with a complex of saviors. And the truth is that none of us understand the conditions of those people.Andreas Antonopoulos.
Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Blockstream, put the highlighter on the potential widespread implementation of the technology and how it could favor the traders.Back stressed in his speech some of the properties of Bitcoin, as reported by our special envoy Carelin Garcia:
I think the point is that technology becomes cheaper as more is improved and is used (…) a person with a local business with economic problems will be able to use bitcoin for international transactions. Bitcoin is the way autosoberana to handle your finances. I think that in about 20 years I would like to see governments do not have much relevance.Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Blockstream.
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Crisis management
Another debate that touched on the aspect Latin was the one titled how to surf the Latin american crisis as a house of change? in which Pablo González (Bitso, Mexico), Rocelo Lopez (Stratum, Brazil), Guillermo Torrealba (Buddha, Chile), Andrew Fleischer (Gravel, Argentina) and Manuel Beaudroit (Bitex, Argentina) deepened on regulation and markets.To take the word, Torrealba was clear on the chilean case: “the regulation we hate because we live in countries that regulate lousy, but we know that they come from a spirit that seeks to protect the that is in the street”.On the case of mexico, González indicated that the regulatory motif will always be present in some form or another and defended his position by claiming that “the regulation today, it is a necessary evil. Exists and not what we can change (…), but do not forget that I think that we exchange we are a transitory step”.
Situation in Venezuela
The complicated political and economic landscape that crosses Venezuela also formed part of the issues discussed during the second day in laBITconf, with a panel composed by Hector Cardenas, CEO and co-founder of Breaking News, Ernesto Contreras (Dash), Diana Aguilar (CoinDesk) and @VaKaNoBTC, with the moderation of Elena Giralt.Source: Carelin Garcia.For Cardenas, the electricity crisis has affected the normal development of the digital newspaper as part of their staff resides in the interior of the country, where the situation is most acute in Caracas, its capital.“In Breaking News there are many people who work outside of Caracas, and which suffer by this collapse of the electric system and spend more than 12 hours a day without light”, he said. In connection with the adoption of the cryptocurrencies in the country and the arrival of the petro emphasized that, although there is knowledge of the subject, there are still aspects that require further definition.“I I differ in that Venezuela is the country with the highest adoption of crypto in the world, that would be China, ( … ), I do think that everyone has heard about bitcoin or about the petro, but not everyone uses really. The venezuelan government wants to impose his attempt to criptomoneda, us from Breaking News we have not found anything that proves that it works as criptomoneda and they take it because if you don’t want what I’m going to force the same because I want to use it”, explained the director.The subject of the mining cryptocurrencies in the country was also discussed in the panel. @VaKaNoBTC pointed out that the low-cost electric power is the main reason for engaging in the activity.“What’s going on in Venezuela is that many (miners) we take the minimum cost for electric (…) what I have seen is to many people using power plants with natural gas is the second product that more there are,” said the speaker.
Map blockchain
The program for the second day of laBITconf also included the presentation of Mauricio Tovar (Alliance Blockchain Latin america), Cristobal Pereira (Blockchain Latam Summit) and Agustín Ferreira (NGO Bitcoin Argentina), who spoke about the criptoecosistema in Latin america and showed how it is shaped the map of ventures related to the different blockchain in the region.It is a compilation of dozens of companies that span various branches of this industry, among which are the software and services business, financial services, education, infrastructure, protocols, health, energy, social impact, media, legal, government, real estate, research and power.The beginning of the day this Friday was headed by Giacomo Zucco, founder of Blockchainlab, BHB Network and maximalist of bitcoin, who covered the models of business related to bitcoin, from financial models such as exchange houses, to offer advice in exchange for bitcoins.Also during the development of the discussion “How flows the cryptocurrencies in the world”, the CEO of OkCoin, Tim Byun, stressed that today, “more education is needed, and entrepreneurs to communicate with governments”, which means that they must build bridges to the people who are behind the developments, and the officials in power to find common points in favor of the technology.The attendance of recognized figures from the criptoecosistema to the seventh edition of laBITconf confirms the interest there is on a global scale about what is happening in Latin america in connection with bitcoin, blockchains and decentralized applications. To share their knowledge and experiences with the attendees, the speakers give a weight to the region in terms of its importance in the international scenario of the cryptocurrencies.So soon, the result of a new event full of expectations on the projects to 2020 of the startups locally and how these can influence the lives of millions of people in the financial field and social. The headquarters of the eighth edition of laBITconf will be announced later, but until then there is a long way to go and new ideas to develop.