Blockchain conferences 2017-2018: Ethereum DevCon3

The Blockchain technology is gaining more and more popularity across the world. The latest trends in cryptocurrency space are emerging with the fast speed. A lot of events are organized for blockchain specialists as well as cryptocurrency enthusiasts for collaboration,  education and exploring new opportunities and ideas in this sphere. They build a platform for blockchain decision makers, influencers, and leaders to meet up discussing new cases and trends, launch new projects, and find related sharp minds for further cooperation.

With the blockchain ecosystem growing there are dozens of events to be attended. Recently we have attended Devcon3 (Ethereum Development Conference 2017) in Mexico, Cancun. This was an absolutely exquisite experience for our Applicature team, and we gladly share our impressions and knowledge with you. Move on to know more.

We’ve compiled a list of the most popular blockchain conferences held in 2017. Most of them are going to be organized in the next year as well.

List of Blockchain conferences 2017:

• APAC Blockchain Conference
  AUS, Sydney/ March 7-9, 2017
• BlockShow Europe
  Germany, Munich/ April 6, 2017
• P2P Financial Systems 2017
  UK, London/ July 20-21, 2017
• 2nd Washington DC Blockchain Conference
  USA, Washington/ July 28, 2017
• Silicon Valley Fintech week
  San Mateo, CA./August 1-6, 2017
• Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Stockholm
  Sweden, Stockholm/ September 7, 2017
• World Blockchain Forum
  UK, London/September 25-26, 2017
• Crypto Economics Security Conference
  California, Berkeley/ October 2-3, 2017
• Block-Con 2017 Blockchain Convention & Token Summit
  Santa Monica, SA/ October 10-11, 2017
• Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Kiev
  Ukraine, Kiev/ October 12, 2017
• Healthcare Unblocked
  UK, London/ October 13, 2017
• Blockchain Summit Amsterdam
  The Netherlands, Amsterdam/October 17, 2017
• Melonport M-O Conference
  Park Hotel< Zug (Crypto Valley) Switzerland/ October 17-18, 2017
• IoT Security Summit
  NY/October 23-24, 2017
• Ethereal San Francisco
  NY, Brooklyn/ October 27, 2017
• DevCon3
  Mexico, Cancun/ November 1-4, 2017

Ethereum Development Conferences

(From Devcon3 website) This year, Devcon3 has reached out to more Ethereum community developers, students and university people than ever before. Devcon3 has two and a half times the number of attendees as last year. And the added Breakout Hall has enabled Devcon3 to include many additional presentations.
To start with, let’s make the overview of previous Development Conferences in 2015 and 2016.

DevCon1

The first Ethereum Development Conference took place in London, in November 9-13, 2015, several months over since Ethereum platform had launched. What is Ethereum platform and how does it push toward decentralized revolution? Dr. Gavin Wood, Ethereum co-founder, explained the key concepts of this platform in his presentation “Ethereum for dummies” at Development Conference.

“Ethereum is commons for innovation, it’s a place for where we all can upload code, ideas in terms of human interaction and have it work with other things transparently. We don’t need to think about the worst signing partnership contracts with other businesses” – Gavin Wood.

From the presentation, we highlighted some milestones. So, what are the guarantees of the code executing within this platform?

• Atomicity – entire operation runs or nothing does
• Synchrony – no two operations can interfere with each other
• Provenance – all messages (method calls) can be inspected to determine caller address. We can check to see who message to us
• Permanence – object’s data are permanent
• Immortality – objects can never be externally deleted (can only voluntarily commit suicide)
• Immutability – object’s code can never be changed

The developers’ conference was focused on the research and dapp development, industry and social implications. The speakers from Ethereum foundation were discussing the future issues of Ethereum and related technologies. During the course, the attendees were able to shape the understanding of future direction of the blockchain-based distributed computing platform. Core development team shared their experience on new existing and in progress projects, producing of new dapps. Ethereum platform gives the ability to run new business models. This topic was also mentioned on Devcon1.

The technical issues were concerning the scalability of the platform. Several strategies were proposed by developers and founders. With the high necessity of ethereum smart contracts, reliability, formal verification strategy, and its concepts were presented at the conference.

DevCon1 had three primary categories of topics: (from Ethereum Blog)

• Basic research and core protocols: including proof of stake, scalability, networking protocols, privacy and zero-knowledge proofs, as well as some of the more mathematical aspects of decentralized protocols like stablecoins, prediction markets and reputation systems.
• Dapp development: focusing on the practical challenges of developing applications on top of the ethereum platform and effective design patterns to optimize security, efficiency, developer time, and the user experience.
• Industry and social implications: including IoT, finance, government, supply chain tracking, notarization, identity, and reputation. This part was designed to appeal to industry and mainstream audiences, and particularly those from outside the Ethereum ecosystem coming in with the goal of understanding what its features are and how their projects can benefit from using the technology, as well as other interested parties such as policymakers and investors.

DevCon3

This year Devcon3 has grown to 2,000 attendees presenting Ethereum technology with new updates and projects. It was held in Mexico, Cancun, in November 1-4, 2017. Blockchain leaders from the Ethereum foundation delivered presentations on scaling solutions, regulatory and security methods, supply chains, new languages and protocols announcements etc. Our Applicature team was very pleased to plunge into Ethereum ecosystem with its technical advancements. In the next lines of the article, we will try to deliver the most highlighted keynotes on four-day presentations.

At Development Conference everyone could delight own eyes and ears by the deployment of Ethereum network in Puppeth presentation, whether watch Robo “token car” moving across the stage. This was a fascinating time for our team, as such gatherings help not only to gain experience, but to exchange skills for common projects.

So, to start with, the most subject-matter and legendary speech during four Development conferences was the one made by Vitalik Buterin: “Ethereum in 25 minutes”. Many concepts of the technical overview of the Ethereum blockchain were provided by him. Further, we share our depictions of the most expressive presentations.

Regulation and Security

Martin Swende – Ethereum Security

Martin Swende in his presentation “One year of Ethereum security” covered EVM forensics, tools and strategies, and managing attacks against the network. His speech was focused on the problems with consensus, EVM attacks of Geth and Parity, analyses etc. He reminded of Devcon2 in Shanghai last year starting off with the series of attacks, which were kept for a month.

“This is Cryptoland, and we’re all in Cryptoland, and it’s like Australia where anything with the heartbeat will try to kill you. If you make a mistake, you are probably dead. It’s like Wild West in Australia right now” – summarised Martin.

There were different kinds of attacks mostly targeted towards the gap. Martin said, when the dust is settled after the incidents, analyses should be performed in order to improve readiness and resiliency. After Shanghai attacks, monitoring nodes that were running in the cloud, and statistics graphs were added. Monitoring helped to notice and analyze inherent transaction propagation inefficiencies. Network traffic was managed by removing invalid transaction propagation from the clients.

In order to prevent the problems with consensus and to detect implementation differences, an op-by-op view of the internal state of EVM is needed. Due to the clients’ differences, in 2016, the hard fork occurred between Geth and Parity.

The second half of presentation was focused on practical demonstration of the analysis of the jumpdest attack with EVMlab reproducer in OP viewer. Evmlab makes it possible to construct EVM-assembly pocs pythonically, to investigate potential consensus issues and performance bottlenecks, to dissect attacks on a low level.

As Martin said, manually crafted tests are great, but cannot possibly scale due to the inherent complexity of the EVM. Before Byzantium launched, “fuzzing” system was implemented allowing a couple of million tests per day using binaries. The second track is based on Lib foster and is called “libfuzzer”. It is more sophisticated as it uses code paths and instrumented binaries to detect code paths for any given input, and mutate those inputs to maximize the code coverage. It is one big binary to faster the test performance. Approximately 100 million tests per day can be performed.

The key takeaway from the speech: “Everyone is the target for the attacker. So, be paranoid and proactive and work on improving the security, resilience and how you can handle attacks”.

Coin Center: Regulatory update and Look ahead

One of the first Devcon presentations were held by Coin Center’s executive director, Jerry Brito, and director of research, Peter Van Valkenburgh.

Jerry Brito began his speech with the introduction of Coin Center and its activity. It is the independent non-profit focused on the public policy issues, affecting cryptocurrencies and open blockchain networks. There are three things Coin Center members do:

• educate policymakers
• policy research to develop regulatory frameworks
• advocate for the solutions

Jerry Brito was making the review of the past year. His main announcement was about the state money transmission licensing, namely the Coin Center’s two-year cooperation with the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) to develop a model state act for virtual currency business regulation. He also explained the situation of SEC regarding The DAO. According to his words, it is not the call for enforcement actions, but the Securities and Exchange Commission’s’ (SEC) encouraging for the common position with regulators from other countries.

Van Valkenburgh touched two regulatory update hotspots: securities regulation and anti-money laundering (AML or financial surveillance regulation). He suggested to separate AML into two questions: “Is the token being used as a currency substitute?” and “Is there a centralized issue who can also withdraw from circulation?”.

Then he divided securities regulation into the following questions: “Is the thing being sold as an investment?” and “Is there a person upon whom the investors rely?”

In order to show background case law, Peter van Valkenburgh made a graph scheme, displaying the SEC’s possible jurisdiction. He suggested that the SEC should mostly focus on the intersection of investment and issuers.

Status – a mobile Ethereum OS

Status is a hybrid Instant Messenger and mobile DApp browser. Status co-founder Jarrad Hope started his presentation with the events in Catalonia and Spain, namely the referendum on Catalan independence. He displayed the slide with Tor Messenger and statistics of its downloads. “This is the Catalans hardening their communications”, continued Jarrad.

Status core goal is to develop a user-friendly platform that can be experienced easily by persons coming into the crypto world. Jarrad Hope said they want to make sure the users feel safe and in control, not overwhelmed, connecting them with their goals and allowing them to explore Ethereum how they wish. The users can access anything they want. Status team is working on the development of beautiful and intuitive digital assets.

The next announcement was dedicated to the Hardware wallet. This is an open-source Java card that allows anyone to take the trust, safety, and a hardware wallet, and use it on the go. About this and other wallet presentations read below in the subsection about Devcon3 wallets.

Status is expanding their platform, targeting not only Android and IOS, but Linux, Macs, and Windows as well. Due to the exceedingly small talent pool in the crypto community, Status helps incentivize contributions by the open bounty. Million-dollar Open Bounty will help other organizations get involved.

Puppeth

On the second day of DevCon3, the attendees were deeply rooted in Ethereum ecosystem, taking part in informal discussions in small circles. The hallways were flooded with smart minds and conversations on codes and further cooperation.

The first presenter was Ethereum’s Go team leader, Péter Szilágyi, who showed a live demonstration of Puppeth. Here are the slides from the presentation.

Péter Szilágyi made a brilliant contribution to the conference meeting,  presenting Puppeth as a deployment manager for Ethereum networks. Peter deployed testnet, demonstrating the creation of entire Ethereum network. On Twitter, there was a wave of approvals and admires regarding the much easier life for developers due to this innovation.

Day 2 kicking off with @peter_szilagyi giving one of the best presentation so far at #Devcon3 about Puppeth #ethereum pic.twitter.com/811c4Iui33

— BTC Podcast Network (@thebtcpodcast) November 2, 2017

@peter_szilagyi casually live demoing #puppeth creating complete Ethereum test environments via simple command-lines is awesome! #devcon3
— Alan Krassowski (@dappsec) November 2, 2017

So, what wizard is Puppeth? It is a command-line tool that aids to develop your own Ethereum network with the bootnodes register, genesis, monitoring, faucets, dashboard, wallets etc. According to Peter’s demo test, it helps to configure entire state for five clients without doing anything. Thanks to Puppeth, one can easily set up multiple nodes and own faucet, including monitoring tools, as well as blockchain explorer.

Ethereum Wallets

The second day morning of Devcon3  started with introductions and demonstrations of Ethereum wallets. Two kinds of wallets were announced at the conference. We would like to highlight the following theses:

• The Ethereum Android Walleth
  

It was presented by Marcus Ligi. Walleth aims to bring Ethereum to the masses and to replace current services. It stores private keys on the Android device. Marcus Ligi managed to demonstrate technical and development aspects of the Walleth, as well as traditional users’ interface.

Firstly, Marcus displayed the unusual Walleth interface. There are incoming and outcoming transactions. Incoming transactions are illustrated on the left by arrows transferring into the outcoming transactions.

Secondly, there was an explanation of the password necessity. He said that password creation needs a long process. Therefore, in order to save time, there is a need for password making only in the case of the value of its protection.

He also noted that not only the app, but the platform should be open sourced.

• Status hardware wallet

As we mentioned above, Status has issued its own wallet. This was one of the biggest announcements of Jarrad’s Hope presentation. This wallet is an open source of Java card. Jarrad highlighted the improvement regarding Discover search tool, the aim of which is to connect people, apps and communities in a decentralized manner. It is basically naive epidemic protocol, in which users publish public statuses using hashtags and propagating to their friends.

Every user then collects a case of seen messages and periodically he/she generates a preference list, sharing that subset with all of their contacts. Status is building multiple layers of trust.

There was a mention of rebuilding history, namely Status nodes, which act as offline inboxes. They basically work on a promise challenge deposit, allowing the sender to send messages out, collected in these nodes. The recipient then can be informed, come back online, and rebuild the history with a node, even if the sender is not available.

The Raiden Network

Raiden is the scalability solution for Ethereum, performing 1 million transactions per second. It is an open source project available on the Github. The network is running on Linux, MacOS is underway. The next steps of using Raiden network:

• setting up (enabling JSON-RPC protocol)
• channel management (PUT)
• change the channel state (PATCH)
• make transfers (POST)

Augusto presented the agenda, including the network setup and token payments. He said that Raiden is a separate process that communicates with an Ethereum node. For this kind of communication, you need to enable JSON-RPC protocol.

The distinguished thing about the network is the possibility to use the automatic channel management in the PUT web in api 1 connections. The goal is to never start using token without user’s permission. “Knowing which and how much fund you want to use, Raiden will manage channels on your behalf” – said Augusto. You always can manage channels by hand. PATCH is another way of channel management. You can patch the current state of the channel and increase the deposit to make more transfers, or to change the state of the channel by closing it.

Once the channels are open, you can make transfers, using the POST. The last thing is the reaction to receiving payments for the Raiden network. It is possible by watching for the events transfer received. That event has the identifier and the transfer token, and amount you received.

The possibility to test Raiden is through Developer preview, available on the Ropsten testnet.

The second half of presentation was performed by Nora Dunham who contributed to µRaiden (micro Raiden). She discussed its functions and showed a live demo of a token fuelled Robo. µRaiden is off-chain payment channel framework. It is unidirectional, many-to-one implementation, with fast and free transactions. It was only the small piece of the prelude in this presentation, as the most impressive was Robo. It was described by Nora as “a hungry token car having its own Ethereum address”, using µRaiden to be paid in tokens for his work. Having processed the transactions in the network and connected Robo to the to µRaiden, Nora controlled Robo across the stage. So, what is the essence of µRaiden? It can make ERC20 fast, free off-chain micropayments on the Ethereum blockchain.

ZoKrates – a toolbox for zkSNARKS on Ethereum

Jacob Eberhardt provided the audience with development toolkit Zookrates. He started with the explanation about the benefits of off-chain processing. The first thing is scalability. It means, if the verification is cheaper than execution, throughput can be increased. And there is no such block gas limit. According to Jacob, the second aspect is that the private information can be used without revealing it. To gain results in the last aspect, there is an approach, called  Non-interactive Zero-Knowledge proofs. ZkSNARKS (zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARguments of knowledge) is a proof mechanism with the following properties:

• short and non-interactive proofs
• zero knowledge
• verification cost is independent and always the same regardless the computational complexity

In his presentation, Jacob propounded the keynotes of ZoKrates vision.

This framework makes it easier to use ZkSNARKS. It comprises the following: a high-level language, a compiler, which transforms programs to provable constraint systems. ZoKrates is a toolbox for setup phase, witness computation, proof generation and verification Smart contract generation.

ZoKrates: a programming language that compiles to ethereum ZKPs. pic.twitter.com/RmzpBlwJxi

— Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) November 1, 2017

What is the statistics about Ethereum users?

Etherscan.io is the answer. At Devcon3, the founder of Etherescan.io, Matthew Tan, shared the information on demographics of blockchain and cryptocurrency users in general. So, let’s see how the geography is changing over the years.

Tan Matthew showed the transaction chart. Since the Devcon1, which took place in London 2015, transactions extremely increased from 8,5K per day to 500K transactions per day at Devcon3 2017.

“When building applications, it is very useful for developers to understand, who your target audience, users and customers are”, noted Tan. He provided the insight with Google Analytics, how the typical user of Ethereum blockchain looks like.

As for geographic locations, there are some shifts during the last two years. In 2016, the number of users from the US was the largest, accounted for 44 percent of Ethereum user base. It was almost the half of overall amount of users worldwide, followed by Russia, Germany, UK, and Ukraine. But in 2017, there was a large increase in a number of users originated from China and the emergence of new interest from South Korea in crypto scene. Therefore, the US represents the largest database, while China is growing market, and South Korea is the new player in the scene.

Males are still dominant in this sphere, which makes up 92 percent. Only 8 percent of users are women. However, there are still females who take their part in the development of the crypto ecosystem. By the way, here is the confirmation of that fact.

#WomeninBlockchain meetup at #DevCon3 ✌ pic.twitter.com/VFHaU6Zyot
— Carolyn Reckhow (@CReckhow) November 3, 2017

50 percent of the users belong to the age group of 25-34 years. Technology, financial and investment services are the spheres with the largest interest in Ethereum.

As for browser type, 59,16 percent belong to Chrome browser, followed by Safari (14,66%) and Firefox (9,39%). As for screen resolutions, the user interactions are mostly on laptop and desktop interface. Around for two-thirds of users are using desktop interface (66,38%), nearly 30% – mobile interface, only 3% of users prefer tablet. Regarding the operating system, a half of users’ work with Windows. Android (17%) and IOS (16%) are the following operating systems. With regard to mobile scene breakdown, Apple iPhone commands the largest market share (40%), followed by Apple Ipad (4,47 %).

DevCon Meetups

Mainstage presentations were combined with impromptu informal meetups. Our Applicature team was delighted to be involved in the brainstorm flood of conversations regarding blockchain industry, ethereum smart contracts development, initial coin offerings, and the deployment and customization of blockchain solutions. We are Blockchain development agency, and it was very useful for us to gain new experience and to build relationships with the sharpest minds in the crypto space. Scaling solutions, privacy improvements, off-chain micropayments, toolkits, and deployment managers – all this to make developers life easier. We were glad to make new friends, engaging in new projects. The great part of conversations was held in smaller circles. For instance, in Starbucks with the coffee mood in active discussions about Ethereum foundation achievements.

Wanna talk crypto, zkp, quantum cptg? This @Starbucks nearby @ethereumproject #devcon3 is the place! pic.twitter.com/FSjPDMkjKz

— Applicature (@Applicature) November 2, 2017

The day before the Devcon start, guys from Golem project organized Halloween party on Monday, October 3. It was the first meetup.

Great to meet our enthusiasts, fans and friends at #DevCon3 for our #Halloween meetup. It was an amazing night, thanks for your support! pic.twitter.com/o9ncperFUy
— golem (@golemproject) November 2, 2017

Our CTO @Viggith having a laugh with the team! Thanks everyone for joining our #DevCon3 #Halloween meetup yesterday! More pics tomorrow pic.twitter.com/CMYdXQEdHu

— golem (@golemproject) November 1, 2017

On Friday, November 3,  the leaders from EEA (Enterprise Ethereum Alliance) managed to hold a cocktail Networking Reception meetup. It took place in the wonderful location on the 2nd floor of Coral Kingdom Ballroom with the picturesque view on the coral beach. The aim was to learn more about the organization and network with other innovators in the certain industry.

Attending #Devcon3 in Cancun next month? Join EEA for a free networking reception, sponsored by @Microsoft, on 11/3! https://t.co/xajR0NLC9H pic.twitter.com/B4tzMw9hh8
— EntEthAlliance (@EntEthAlliance) October 20, 2017

Way more people than expected have showed up at @EntEthAlliance Meetup at #Devcon3… we are gonna need an EEA DevCon fo sho…

— Ajit Tripathi (@cryptananda) November 3, 2017

Meeting old and new friends at devcon3 and the @EntEthAlliance reception pic.twitter.com/iBlnTxVZOj
— Vanessa Grellet (@VanessaGrellet_) November 4, 2017

There was also a meetup in aloft hotel lobby by Hasgraph regarding Bitcoin and Blockchain future events. It was held on Saturday, November 4.

Blockchain events 2017-2018

The end of 2017 and 2018 are going to be full of Blockchain conferences and events throughout the world. We have prepared the event schedule of the most trending events to provide you with the future updates in the crypto world.

The list is based on the events taken from coindesk.com and some more other websites.

December

1. Blockchain World Conference
   Bangkok, Thailand/ December 4, 2017
   
   The conference is a centralized place to discuss decentralization. Attending this conference you will have an opportunity to meet and network with industry thought leaders, developers, investors, and enthusiasts. Blockchain World Conference is open for everyone from newbies to experts. There will be presentations and meetups on the future of blockchain development, smart contracts, finance, government restrictions and crypto legality, investment in blockchain start-ups and business utilizing ICO crowdfunding etc. The agenda will engage the top leaders in the blockchain development industry.
2. Moontec
   Talinn, Estonia/ December 4-5, 2017
   
   Moontec 2017 is the largest conference in Northern Europe, devoted to cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and its implementation in various industries.Grasp inspiration from world’s most successful entrepreneurs in the blockchain industry, that are seeking enthusiasts to give their advice to. Maybe you’re that one and only inspiration for others, and there is only one way to find it out! Define what’s the most concerning topic for you and attend some of 50+ speaking sessions. Imagine you are a block. Imagine another person on this conference is a block. In order to make the whole system work, you both should connect. Go ahead, network the chain out of this conference!
3. BConference: Lets Blockchain This World Together
   Abu Dhabi, UAE/ December 7, 2017
   The Blockchain conference in Abu Dhabi creates a platform for the exchange of knowledge, experience, and success in the field of the Blockchain technology application in the modern middle eastern world. The conference will open its doors for your future customers, partners, and contractors. What to expect:
   • Full-day conference: keynotes and panel discussions
   • Exhibition zone with product demonstration
   • Networking breaks
4. Cryptospace Conference
   Moscow, Russia / December 8, 2017Cryptospace is the biggest Eastern Europe Blockchain and cryptocurrency conference. All speakers are top crypto entrepreneurs and authoritative opinion leaders of Blockchain from America, Asia, and Europe. The conference will be set in 4 sections:
   how and why implement blockchain
   token sale (ICO) due diligence
   crypto trading
   media, PR, marketing in Blockchain
5. CryptoBlockCon 2017
   Las Vegas Mandalay Bay/ December 13, 2017
   CBC is bringing together hundreds of passionate cryptocurrency and Blockchain experts to talk about the currencies, the technology, and what to expect in 2018. At CBC, you will not interested in what’s happening with Bitcoin cash in the next 4 weeks, the blockchain leaders and experts will talk about what’s happening with Blockchain over the next 40 years. With endless opportunities in an evolving industry, CBC team is passionate about the space, the future for cryptocurrencies and blockchain, and what the technology can hold.January
6. Dubai International Blockchain Summit
   Dubai, UAE/ January 9
   
   Welcome to the largest gathering of blockchain in the middle east, an opportunity to showcase and discuss the recent and upcoming financial technology, and the promising technology of blockchain. The team assembled the finest and the most influencing speakers across the world. They come from the innovative industries, the leaders, and decision-makers, who change the world, building a better future for all of us.
7. Blockchain Cruise Asia
   Singapore/ January 15-19, 2018
   
   This event will be the blockchain event of the year!
   • more than 50 speakers
   • 700 guests from all over the world
   • 100 media members
   • 2 conference days and…
   • 3 simultaneous conferences with different topics for guests to choose from

   What to expect at Blockchain Cruise Asia:

   • Departing from Singapore aboard the Mariner of the Seas and visiting Penang, Malaysia and Phuket, Thailand
   • Valuable education, top-notch entertainment, parties, fine dining and of course… traditional sunset viewing parties
     And that’s not all. There will be a special Blockchain Cruise Asia conference day on a private beach in Phuket, Thailand. This will be an event of epic proportions!
8. The Crypto Finance Conference
   St. Moritz, Switzerland/ January 17-19, 2018
   
   Crypto Finance Conference ’18 in St. Moritz, Switzerland is the World’s first and largest investor conference on cryptocurrencies and blockchain investments. The CFC’18 brings together both private and institutional investors and the leading providers of the crypto & blockchain universe. The 3-day conference offers expert education, investment opportunities, excellent networking opportunities and last but not least a great setting in one of the World’s best ski resorts in the Swiss Alps.
9. Blockchain for SCF Masterclass
   Frankfurt, Germany/ January 30, 2018
   The Blockchain for SCF Masterclass is an advanced and comprehensive workshop that will review and assess the latest developments in blockchain technology for supply chain finance. The masterclass  will bring together supply chain finance professionals and industry disruptors in an active discussion of the key opportunities and challenges:
   • Reviewing latest developments in blockchain and DLT
   • Using blockchain technology to create value for their customers
   • Overcoming regulatory and legal constraints
   • Working towards a standardization
   • Collaborating with fintech to enable DLT
   • Mitigating the risks of fraud and increasing security
10. Blockchain2Business Conference
    Amsterdam, Netherlands/February 5-6, 2017
    The Blockchain is regarded as a revolutionary and transformative technology potentially disrupting the energy field.  What are the current and future applications of blockchain in the renewable energy field? How will it impact current business models? Is it revolutionary or speculative hype? This conference will bring together developers, utilities, startups, consultants, technology leaders, investors and regulators exploring the present and future of blockchain in renewable energy.On 5 and 6 February 2018, Solarplaza will host the Blockchain2Business conference, a high-level B2B platform aimed at unraveling the hype, addressing the core of blockchain potential, and highlighting the present-day & near-future business cases for blockchain applications in the energy field.
11. DUBAI Fx Crypto currency & ICO
    Dubai, UAE/ February 16-17, 20181500 participants are expected to attend over 2 days. The event schedule aims to provide in-depth experience to every visitor. Brokers, technology and solutions providers, aggregators of cryptocurrency liquidity, Exchanges, Blockchain companies, and everyone involved in the Crypto and ICO industry will share their professional advice and much more about the new age of investment. The event is a major conference dedicated to FX, cryptocurrency investments, and trading of course, on both levels B2B and B2C.Potential customers, Brokers, IBs, startups, banks, financial companies, big companies, government departments, institutional and private investors will attend the event from all over the region, in addition to local participants. The 2 days conference and exhibition will be an excellent networking opportunity and last but not least a great setting in one of the region leading financial hub, Dubai.
12. Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference
    Dallas, TX/ February 23-24, 2018Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Con 2018 (BCC-2018) will be the first international conference in Texas devoted to blockchain and decentralized technologies. It will be an opportunity for all involved in the arena, whether they are building Dapps and crypto-assets on blockchains, implementing DAOs, mining and trading cryptocurrencies, developing blockchain-based tokens and protocols, operating in the ICO spectrum, or involved on the regulatory side of things to come together to explore and exchange ideas around a technology that’s set to completely reshape how we interact and conduct business in the coming years. And Blockmatics, a leading trainer in the blockchain arena, will be conducting three separate training classes – a 2-hour Ethereum Smart Contract Workshop for developers, a 6-hour Business of Blockchains class, and a 1-hour Blockchain for Lawyers class.March
13. 2nd Annual Fintech Week Tel Aviv
    Tel Aviv, Israel/ March 5-7, 2018
    The first day of the conference will be dedicated to Bitcoin, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The speakers will be exploring the evolution of Blockchain from Crypto to ICO, from innovators and influencers in the space. The second day will focus on all Fintech things, as well as on the key emerging challenges and trends. There will be key players from across the fintech ecosystem including banks, corporate decision makers, product providers, VCs, start-ups, and innovators. On the third day, the presenters will talk about the intersection of cyber security and financial services. The key players and thought leaders will explore how safe your identity, money, and data really is.
14. World Blockchain Forum
    Dubai, UAE/ March 6, 2018Keynote Events is proud to invite you to be the part of the newest and most exciting event yet, WBF: WORLD BLOCKCHAIN FORUM, taking place at Jumeirah Mina A’Salam. This conference is unlike any you’ve seen before. This time, not only two days of non-stop, thought-provoking speeches about Blockchain and disruptive technologies, but you will also listen to the speeches from the biggest in the industry about the hottest new things in the cryptocurrency community – ICOs.
15. DC Blockchain Summit 2018
    Washington, DC/ March 8-9, 2018
    The summit is a gathering at the Intersection of Innovation, Investment, and Policy. It will bring together more than 450 global blockchain advocates from government and technology from 20+ countries. The summit is organized by the Chamber of Digital Commerce. It is the world’s leading trade association representing the digital asset and blockchain industry. The mission of the association is to promote the acceptance and use of digital assets, and blockchain-based technologies. Through education, advocacy and working closely with policy makers, regulatory agencies and industry, the goal is to develop an environment that fosters innovation, jobs, and investment.
16. Blockchain Africa Conference 2018
    Johannesburg, South Africa/ March 8-9, 2018
    Blockchain technology offers advancements and innovation in various technological fields. The open-source, decentralized and distributed nature of the blockchain creates new opportunities in Africa because the technology offers people, governments, companies, and institutions an alternative to existing systems. Africa has a huge need for financial inclusion; therefore, governments, regulators, and banks are looking at various supporting technologies to bring more financial services to the end user. Blockchain technology opens new avenues for traditional banking, mobile banking, payments, and remittance services. The conference 2018 will bring together a diverse range of local and international speakers to discuss blockchain and cryptocurrency use cases, the regulatory environment, technology hurdles and opportunities in innovation and disruption that can be leveraged using this technology.
17. APAC Blockchain Conference
    Sydney, Australia/ March 13-15, 2018
    The APAC Blockchain Conference, developed in partnership with the Australian Digital Commerce Association (ADCA), looks beyond the hype at the real impacts and potential of blockchain technologies in Australia. The 2nd annual event will be held from 13 – 15 March in Melbourne and bring together blockchain innovators, business leaders, and regulators to help you build your blockchain strategy and assess the viability of the technology. Across the globe, organizations are scrutinizing how blockchain technology can transform current processes, free them of the middleman and save significant costs. The potential is huge and possibilities limitless, however, there are considerable challenges to overcome before the benefits can be realized. This is a not-to-be-missed event for anyone with an interest in the blockchain.
18. Token Fest
    San Francisco, USA/ March 15-16, 2018
    Token Fest is an exclusive, two-day networking event focused on the business and technology of tokenization. Attendees will gain a wealth of insights and information about the state of the token-based economy while networking with over 700 senior level thought leaders. Token Fest brings together business professionals from blockchain based enterprises including CEO’s, end users, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, regulators, attorneys & developers to network and collaborates on topics such as:
    • Cryptoeconomic Strategy
    • P2P Ecosystem Architecture
    • Cyber Security & Hardware
    • Tokenized Revenue Models
    • Applied Cryptography
    • Smart Contracts & IOT
    • Token Analysis/Governance
    • Internet of Money
    • Capital Markets
    • Regulation & Policy
    • Open Systems
    • Scaling Technology
    • Enterprise Blockchain Solutions
    • Distributed Ledger Applications
    • Enterprise Decentralization
    • Secure Supply Chains
    • Smart Token Technology
    • Crowdfunding Models
    • Physical Asset Tokenization
    • Token Protocol Strategy
    • Behavioral Tokenomics
    • Sharing Economy
    • Scalable DApps
    • Data Integrity SolutionsApril
19. Blockchain Expo Global
    London, UK/ April 18-19, 2018Blockchain Expo will be arriving at London’s Olympia on 18-19 April 2018, bringing together industry leaders for two-days content from leading brands embracing and developing cutting-edge blockchain technologies. Presented in a series of top-level keynotes, interactive panel discussions, and solution-based case studies, Blockchain Expo will explore the industries that are set to be disrupted the most by this new technology, including legal sectors, financial services, healthcare, insurance, energy, music, government, and real estate. Co-located with IoT Tech Expo and AI Expo, the events are expected to attract in excess of 12, 000 attendees.May
20. Consensus 2018
    New York, NY/ May 14-16, 2018
    The 4th annual blockchain technology summit is organized by CoinDesk on May 14-16, 2018 at the New York Hilton Midtown. Consensus 2018 will feature 250+ speakers and 3,000+ attendees from the leading industry startups, investors, financial institutions, enterprise tech leaders, and academic and policy groups who are building the foundations of the blockchain and digital currency economy.
21. Blockchain, IoT & Machine Learning in Oil & Gas Europe
    London, UK/ May 22-23, 2018
    The 3rd Annual Blockchain, IoT & Machine Learning in Oil & Gas Europe Conference has been established to ensure executives and technology specialists stay abreast of the latest IoT developments. Whether you’re a major operator, contractor or technology solution provider, this is your chance to learn from insightful case studies and benchmark against industry best practice. You will also have plenty of opportunities to exchange ideas and network with peers to pursue commercial opportunities. You will be able to learn from in-depth case studies on:
    • Protocol translations to enable “IoT gateways” for equipment that generate different data
    • Using machine learning applications to collect, prioritize and distribute big data effectively
    • Evaluating which technologies would deliver the best return on investment (ROI)
    • Integrating cloud technology to consolidate big data in a cost-effective way
    • Monitoring operational performance in subsurface environments by integrating different data sets
    • Reducing equipment downtime through real-time applications
    • Improving safety through real-time reporting and equipment condition monitoring

    Over the past 2 years, more than 2000 people have attended the Energy Conference Network’s IoT events; while more than 150 specialist solution providers have sponsored these events. At the upcoming 3nd Annual Blockchain, IoT & Machine Learning in Oil & Gas Europe Conference, you will have the chance to network with industry leaders and interact with panelists in insightful discussions on important IoT topics.