A Visit To Crypto Valley
I blogged about Crypto Valley yesterday (aka Zug Switzerland).
Well it turns out that a couple of AVC community members (Ken Berger and Jeremy Epstein) have put together a three day trip to Zug on August 14-16. Details are here.
Ken Berger wrote this in his post yesterday:
Our target attendee participants are enthusiasts already well-versed in decentralizing internet technologies, including blockchain, crypto-currencies and beyond. We’ve already confirmed some VC’s and hackers, but other deep thinkers and some simply curious will likely make the list too; will be a great group. The event is free of charge. And hey, it’s gorgeous Switzerland in summer.
Unfortunately, we are very limited in spaces. To indicate interest as a participant (or speaker, or host), feel free to message me or use the instructions on the event’s post.
I will not be making this pilgrimage but I suspect some of you may be interested in doing so.
Comments (Archived):
Fantastic! See you all there 🙂
Unfortunately cannot afford the jolly. Loving the term pilgrimage,may you witness transubstantiation.
A new word for me ‘jolly’ used in this context. Yesterday it was ‘stones’ as in “I used to weigh X stones” (where a stone is 14 pounds) from a Netflix on Miami SWAT where the moderator was from the UK.
“Jolly” “was on a jolly” “off on a jolly” typically used as paid time off work to visit a conference / meeting / sporting event
Coincidentally, the city of Zug just announced that it will offer digital identity services through a new app, connecting a person’s ID with a particular crypto-address.
yup, a link to that news is in my post.
Hat tip to @wmoug:disqus and his seminal Token Summit.Jeremy’s coverage of that event made us aware of each other. And all 3 of us are long-time AVCers.
True. Value of the AVC community.
So true.Once again!
very tempting.
Do crypto bank accounts have the same benefits as Swiss bank accounts if they are domiciled in Switzerland? : )
I think that the idea of bringing people together like this (on a pilgrimage or fact finding mission or whatever this would be considered) is a decent business idea in itself.A platform where learning, discovery or informational trips could be booked. And anyone could come up with an idea to encourage like minded individuals to get together and explore a topic in unusual and not easily available ways. Not tours, not ‘visit wine country’ but something so niche and long tail that people haven’t even thought about it or couldn’t easily do it themselves. As a profit making idea enough moving parts for the operator (I know that wasn’t the point of what Ken and Jeremy are doing) to have a going concern.
I’ve been involved in events organizing, off and on for many years now. And you are completely correct: plenty of people have done decently to super well being in the business of business events.But like you imply, Jeremy and I considered ticket prices + sponsorships (which could exceed the former), and quickly decided to stick to the objective we have, which is to bring great people together around a super prescient business topic, with the bet that long-term we’d all benefit from a bigger picture.
I originally asked myself the question, honestly, I think there’s more value in bringing the right people together and forming a relationship based on a peer-to-peer (pun intended) environment. Once you take money from people, expectations for them change and hassle for us changes. It’s just not the business that I want to be in right now (I prefer the vCMO/marketing advisor role to blockchain/decentralized start-ups and the speaking circuit). Of course, things can always change. 😉
People have been hiding money in Switzerland for years. I’m not sure how this is anything new. (But the conference sounds awesome!)Russia has engaged in “Jurisdictional Competition” for many years by electing to ignore (and in fact leverage) cyber criminals. Thus it has become a breeding ground and safe-haven for world-wide cyber crime. So just because a certain place decides to relax regulations to encourage a behavior or technology does not mean it will have a net positive result on the rest of the world. Just something to keep in mind.
That perception, so extremely removed from reality or understanding of what crypto-currencies are about, shows an example of how much work this industry needs to do. So, thanks.
I was being a bit cheeky, but there is truth to your statement about perception. (BTW – I am a fan of crypto-currency. But as a security professional very concerned.)Let me try to understand. Countries have created safe-havens for parking money by avoiding regulation for many years. (Swiss Bank Accounts, Irish Taxation, etc.) Is this not creating a geography to avoid monetary regulation on crypto-money? I’m not sure why my comment was so “extremely removed from reality.”
no offense intended. IMO, it is extremely different in a few key ways, one main one is that unlike the swiss bank accounts of yore that you reference, you don’t just “park your money” at a physical bank location. crypto-currencies use internet protocols and exist in the cloud, distributed everywhere and nowhere.A comparison i think of is re Napster: they died because the music files resided on a central server that was super easy to “go after”. Then Gnutella came around, and later bittorrent, both of which distribute pieces of information all over the place. Tough to claim that the latter gives a particular residence to anything.
Just passed this on. Maybe some Dash-ers will show up. 🙂
The emergence of Crypto Valley definitely hints of deja vu. As someone recruiting in Europe for a crypto community, I can’t help but wonder how it will play out to once again have a geographic focal point for an emerging industry (and a relatively expensive one at that) and what the implications will be.
i don’t think that many people are actually expecting to really find this around Zug, in any large scale. There are definitely some cool companies there with at least some of their people there. Lots of important work is also being done in NY, SF, Singapore and an infinite number of other places.But Switzerland in relatively quiet and warm August seemed like a fun place to bring folks together, and it’s close by for me! (Berlin = home for now)
I am probably more sensitized because we are recruiting across Europe and having major discussions on which locations to focus on since the entire continent is open territory for my client’s remote team. And Zug came up in our discussions.BTW, someone at Dash is interested in representing their core team at your event. That’s all I want to share publicly. Is there still room for sign ups?I am part executive recruiter, part executive assistant. Just kidding on the latter but sometimes full-service takes interesting turns working with very early stage organizations. 🙂
sure. there’s an indicator of interest signup form if you click through the event link in the post above. We will need to make decisions quickly to give folks time to make travel arrangments, so the soon the better.
Ken, my Dash colleague tried to access the form and it is no longer working. Is the event full?
EDIT: form is open (at least as of July 25, 2017) for waitlisting for future events.Yes, response was huge! We had to close the form.
What Zug is doing is putting the ideas of decentralization-writ large-into practice. It’s less about talent concentration and more about seeing a peek at the future (potentially). It’s like going to Estonia for an e-country.
exciting… I’m going!
We need discussions on many topics, especially legal, corporate, taxation, etc. We are interested in connecting real-world assets with crypto values, and then international trading of these..