From December 2nd to 4th, 2021, one of the leading conferences on blockchain solutions in Germany took place in Hamburg: Blockchance Europe 2021. The crypto fair took place in the splendid, time-honored building of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce. The fact that a blockchain conference took place in this building shows that blockchain technology is perceived by politics and business as a serious factor in business. For a good reason: hundreds of billions of euros have now been invested in the crypto space.

What very few have noticed so far: Solutions based on distributed ledger technologies are not just any new trend, but a completely new branch of the economy. This technologically driven industry will mix with established business areas and offer new solutions to existing problems. And one of these big areas of development is Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

A varied program was offered at BLOCKCHANCE. Although the Covid situation partially restricted operations, this did not result in any restrictions on the perfectly organized event. Most of the lectures on site were exciting and inspiring for me. You were spoiled for choice to register for one of the parallel series of events, and I made ample use of it. On my part, I was particularly interested in the areas of decentralized finance, custody, regulation, blockchain protocols and NFTs.

Thanks to the Whova app, you always had an overview of what was going on: you could save your personal agenda, save your own profile with your interests and thus communicate easily with the community. In total, more than 1,500 people took part. Kudos at this point to the organizers: Both through the app and on site, you repeatedly got into conversation with other interested participants.

On the first day I attended three sessions. During a fireside chat, Bitcoin investor Michael Sailor tried to convince people of Bitcoin with explanations. “All blockchain protocols except Bitcoin fail the SEC’s Howey test,” said the Bitcoin maximalist. MicroStrategy, founded by Michael Sailor, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin.

In the evening I attended an NFT meetup to finish off. Around 30 interested people met there to eat sushi and were given an insight into the current status of Metaverse and NFT marketplaces such as Opensea.

On the second day, participation in the events and networking were on the agenda. Another fireside chat was particularly interesting at this day: The founder of TRON, Justin Sun, explained his view of the crypto world. Justin Sun also recently acquired a Macklowe NFT for $78 million.

Later on I came into contact with dozens of experts from a variety of fields in the blockchain space. The conversations with numerous new contacts to founders and other players from the crypto world were also interesting. For example, I also got to know two employees of the Bittrex Global crypto exchange personally. One of them made sure that the currency of Electra Protocol was listed for trading there. I have been an advisor to the Electra Protocol since November 2021.

In the evening I went to a steak dinner and the after party of Finoa and Blockdaemon.

On the last day of the conference, I had time to talk to some of the exhibitors at BLOCKCHANCE in more detail. These included organizations such as Polygon, Figment, SettleMint, Concordium, BTC-ECHO and several others. Blocksize Capital was also represented with a booth, as did Micobo and Decus Network, which are part of the corporate group. At Blocksize Capital, I will start my role as Head of DeFi/Node Operations in January 2022.

What remains after three days at the fair are inspiring conversations, many contacts, and the insight that the blockchain world with its possibilities offers enormous potential for a variety of economic areas. The new solutions are particularly suitable for financial transactions.