Blockchain Economic Event! [April 19th, Toronto]
 
MUST REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/blockchain-economic-event-tickets-41985814702

Interested in Bitcoin, CryptoAssets and Blockchain Economics?
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn from the top global thinkers in the blockchain ecosystem!
Keynote Speaker: Don Tapscott, followed by a series of talks by industry thought leaders such as:

EVENT POSTER:
https://fintechcan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Blockchain-Economic-Forum-2018.16_Feb22_Update-4-1.png

Blockchain Speakers & Panelists:
Don Tapscott: Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute. Don is one of the world’s leading authorities on the impact of technology on business and society. He is the author of 16 books, including the bestseller Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World.
Meltem Demirors: Vice President at Digital Currency Group | WEF Blockchain Council | MIT MediaLab. Meltem is an experienced business leader. She brings a wide range of international, multi-sector experience to her leadership in building Digital Currency Group's global network.
Adam Draper: Founder and Managing Director of Boost VC. Co-Founded Xpert Financial while still in his senior year at UCLA. Has recently launched Boost Incubator (www.boost.vc) an incubator based in San Mateo geared toward mentoring startups to help them get to the next level.
Chris Burniske: Author of “Cryptoassets”. Formerly led @ARKInvest’s cryptoasset efforts.
Paige Peterson: User Education & Communications at Zcash Company, Paige is an advocate for open standards, user privacy and decentralized technologies.
Adam Back: Architect - Bitcoin, Cryptography, Security, Cloud, Internet, Open Source Blockstream. cryptography consultant - previously vmware/emc, picorp, microsoft passport, zero knowledge systems. Specialties: cryptography protocols, bitcoin, electronic cash, privacy enhanced technology, distributed file systems, anonymity, distributed publishing systems, p2p systems; protocol design, review, implementation, CC/FIPS certification, security architecture.
Max Keiser: is the co-presenter and producer of Keiser Report, the first international financial news program to cover bitcoin when the cryptocurrency was still under $3. His background is in banking, options trading and financial technology innovation. Keiser was awarded a US patent for his virtual specialist technology patent for trading virtual securities and currencies. The patent is referenced in many subsequent inventions relating to derivatives trading. Keiser’s Hollywood Dollar was the first proof of concept that a digital currency could be created out of ‘thin air’ and used to create an economy and network around a currency not backed by a state. Keiser was an early investor in both bitcoin and in many bitcoin related startups, including Kraken, Bitpay, Shapeshift, Unocoin, Bitpesa, Bitso, Bitfinex, Factom, Storj and Uphold. He raised $500,000 in 24 hours from the Dash treasury in July 2017 for a television sponsorship deal, which was the largest blockchain crowdfund history at that time. Keiser is an in demand speaker at international cryptocurrency conferences, including keynoting the first ever bitcoin conference in 2011 in Prague.
Stacy Herbert: is the co-presenter of Keiser Report. Her background is in film and television development and production and in international feature film sales. Herbert is the CEO of Heisenberg Capital founded by Max Keiser. The company is an early investor in many bitcoin related startups. Herbert is currently co-organizing a bitcoin conference for the autumn of 2018 and, along with Max Keiser, she is co-hosting a new weekly cryptocurrency show online called To the Moon with Max and Stacy.
Paul Snow: CEO at Factom Currently working within the cryptocurrency world to build new solutions to persistent problems.
Alena Vranova: Cofounder of Satoshi Labs / Trezor Hardware Wallet.
Simon Dixon: CEO & co-founder of BnkToTheFuture.com, the online investment platform for investing in the future of finance. An active FinTech angel investor & author of the book 'Bank to the Future'.
Dmitry Buterin: Passionate tech entrepreneur. Founder of three multi-million dollars businesses, including the top-ranked membership management software company, Wild Apricot, which serves over 20,000 non-profit organisations. Co-founder of BlockGeeks.com. Angel investor and mentor for blockchain startups. Proud father of Vitalik Buterin - creator of Ethereum. Voluntarist.
Andrei Poliakov: President and Co-Founder at Coinberry + 10 years of operations and strategy development experience in various corporate settings with leading global multinationals
Sheri Kaiserman: Principal Advisor and Co-Founder of Maco.la. Maco.la was formed to help support the growing blockchain ecosystem with a 3 pronged approach of providing capital, advisory and talent. Prior to co-founding Maco.la, Sheri had a successful 28 year career on Wall Street at two firms: ten years as an Institutional Equity Research Salesperson at Oppenheimer, and 18 years at Wedbush in which she spent 16 of them successfully building and running the Equities Division. Under Sheri’s direction, Wedbush began writing research on and investing in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology since 2013.
Oliver Gale: Executive Director at Bitt. Bitt is a Financial Technology company that utilises distributed ledger technology to improve speed, efficiency and significantly reduce the costs of the payment system.
Marshall Hayner: CEO and Co-Founder of Metal, Building a new financial system.
Hartej Sawhney: Co-Founder at Hosho.io, a global leader in blockchain security.
Paul Sztorc: Economist at Bloq, Inc, passionate about knowledge and scientific truth and the scientific methods used to uncover the truth.
Mike Gord: Founder & CEO at MLG Blockchain Consulting I am an entrepreneur and full stack software developer focused on building next generation decentralized applications using blockchains and smart contract technology.
Preethi Kasireddy: Founder & CEO at Schelling. Previously at Coinbase, a16z and Goldman Sachs.
Connie Gallippi: Founder and Executive Director of BitGive, the first government recognized 501(c)(3) Bitcoin nonprofit, bridging the gap between an innovative technology and its practical applications for nonprofits and humanitarian work in the developing world.
Dilip Ratha: Head, KNOMAD, World Bank - working on market-based financing solutions for poor households, small businesses, and poor countries. Currently I'm developing a low-cost remittance platform originally proposed in my TED Talk.

"Blockchain Economic Event" will be comprised of a two part event:
Training Sessions – Morning & Afternoon (9am – 5pm): an all day multi-track series comprised of technical, legal, education and business workshops

Panel Discussions – Evening (6pm – 9pm): an evening series of engaging panel discussions and fireside chats among industry thought leaders.

Full day ticket price includes food, beverages and 2 books: Blockchain Revolution and CryptoAssets.
To buy tickets with bitcoin or ethereum, please send an email to: tickets@fintechcan.ca

- Team Fintech Canada

Blockchain Economic Event! [April 19th, Toronto]
 
MUST REGISTER ON EVENTBRITE:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/blockchain-economic-event-tickets-41985814702

Interested in Bitcoin, CryptoAssets and Blockchain Economics?
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn from the top global thinkers in the blockchain ecosystem!
Keynote Speaker: Don Tapscott, followed by a series of talks by industry thought leaders such as:

EVENT POSTER:
https://fintechcan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Blockchain-Economic-Forum-2018.16_Feb22_Update-4-1.png

Blockchain Speakers & Panelists:
Don Tapscott: Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute. Don is one of the world’s leading authorities on the impact of technology on business and society. He is the author of 16 books, including the bestseller Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World.
Meltem Demirors: Vice President at Digital Currency Group | WEF Blockchain Council | MIT MediaLab. Meltem is an experienced business leader. She brings a wide range of international, multi-sector experience to her leadership in building Digital Currency Group's global network.
Adam Draper: Founder and Managing Director of Boost VC. Co-Founded Xpert Financial while still in his senior year at UCLA. Has recently launched Boost Incubator (www.boost.vc) an incubator based in San Mateo geared toward mentoring startups to help them get to the next level.
Chris Burniske: Author of “Cryptoassets”. Formerly led @ARKInvest’s cryptoasset efforts.
Paige Peterson: User Education & Communications at Zcash Company, Paige is an advocate for open standards, user privacy and decentralized technologies.
Adam Back: Architect - Bitcoin, Cryptography, Security, Cloud, Internet, Open Source Blockstream. cryptography consultant - previously vmware/emc, picorp, microsoft passport, zero knowledge systems. Specialties: cryptography protocols, bitcoin, electronic cash, privacy enhanced technology, distributed file systems, anonymity, distributed publishing systems, p2p systems; protocol design, review, implementation, CC/FIPS certification, security architecture.
Max Keiser: is the co-presenter and producer of Keiser Report, the first international financial news program to cover bitcoin when the cryptocurrency was still under $3. His background is in banking, options trading and financial technology innovation. Keiser was awarded a US patent for his virtual specialist technology patent for trading virtual securities and currencies. The patent is referenced in many subsequent inventions relating to derivatives trading. Keiser’s Hollywood Dollar was the first proof of concept that a digital currency could be created out of ‘thin air’ and used to create an economy and network around a currency not backed by a state. Keiser was an early investor in both bitcoin and in many bitcoin related startups, including Kraken, Bitpay, Shapeshift, Unocoin, Bitpesa, Bitso, Bitfinex, Factom, Storj and Uphold. He raised $500,000 in 24 hours from the Dash treasury in July 2017 for a television sponsorship deal, which was the largest blockchain crowdfund history at that time. Keiser is an in demand speaker at international cryptocurrency conferences, including keynoting the first ever bitcoin conference in 2011 in Prague.
Stacy Herbert: is the co-presenter of Keiser Report. Her background is in film and television development and production and in international feature film sales. Herbert is the CEO of Heisenberg Capital founded by Max Keiser. The company is an early investor in many bitcoin related startups. Herbert is currently co-organizing a bitcoin conference for the autumn of 2018 and, along with Max Keiser, she is co-hosting a new weekly cryptocurrency show online called To the Moon with Max and Stacy.
Paul Snow: CEO at Factom Currently working within the cryptocurrency world to build new solutions to persistent problems.
Alena Vranova: Cofounder of Satoshi Labs / Trezor Hardware Wallet.
Simon Dixon: CEO & co-founder of BnkToTheFuture.com, the online investment platform for investing in the future of finance. An active FinTech angel investor & author of the book 'Bank to the Future'.
Dmitry Buterin: Passionate tech entrepreneur. Founder of three multi-million dollars businesses, including the top-ranked membership management software company, Wild Apricot, which serves over 20,000 non-profit organisations. Co-founder of BlockGeeks.com. Angel investor and mentor for blockchain startups. Proud father of Vitalik Buterin - creator of Ethereum. Voluntarist.
Andrei Poliakov: President and Co-Founder at Coinberry + 10 years of operations and strategy development experience in various corporate settings with leading global multinationals
Sheri Kaiserman: Principal Advisor and Co-Founder of Maco.la. Maco.la was formed to help support the growing blockchain ecosystem with a 3 pronged approach of providing capital, advisory and talent. Prior to co-founding Maco.la, Sheri had a successful 28 year career on Wall Street at two firms: ten years as an Institutional Equity Research Salesperson at Oppenheimer, and 18 years at Wedbush in which she spent 16 of them successfully building and running the Equities Division. Under Sheri’s direction, Wedbush began writing research on and investing in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology since 2013.
Oliver Gale: Executive Director at Bitt. Bitt is a Financial Technology company that utilises distributed ledger technology to improve speed, efficiency and significantly reduce the costs of the payment system.
Marshall Hayner: CEO and Co-Founder of Metal, Building a new financial system.
Hartej Sawhney: Co-Founder at Hosho.io, a global leader in blockchain security.
Paul Sztorc: Economist at Bloq, Inc, passionate about knowledge and scientific truth and the scientific methods used to uncover the truth.
Mike Gord: Founder & CEO at MLG Blockchain Consulting I am an entrepreneur and full stack software developer focused on building next generation decentralized applications using blockchains and smart contract technology.
Preethi Kasireddy: Founder & CEO at Schelling. Previously at Coinbase, a16z and Goldman Sachs.
Connie Gallippi: Founder and Executive Director of BitGive, the first government recognized 501(c)(3) Bitcoin nonprofit, bridging the gap between an innovative technology and its practical applications for nonprofits and humanitarian work in the developing world.
Dilip Ratha: Head, KNOMAD, World Bank - working on market-based financing solutions for poor households, small businesses, and poor countries. Currently I'm developing a low-cost remittance platform originally proposed in my TED Talk.

"Blockchain Economic Event" will be comprised of a two part event:
Training Sessions – Morning & Afternoon (9am – 5pm): an all day multi-track series comprised of technical, legal, education and business workshops

Panel Discussions – Evening (6pm – 9pm): an evening series of engaging panel discussions and fireside chats among industry thought leaders.

Full day ticket price includes food, beverages and 2 books: Blockchain Revolution and CryptoAssets.
To buy tickets with bitcoin or ethereum, please send an email to: tickets@fintechcan.ca

- Team Fintech Canada

This will be the first bitcoin & blockchain seminar of the year in Bangalore!

We have a line up of great speakers who will be teaching speaking about bitcoin, blockchain and crypto-currencies.

Speakers will include:
- Fredrik Grothe-Moller: Cofounder & CEO of Scandinavia's leading bitcoin exchange, CopenhagenBitcoin.dk 
- Monisha Dhanraj: Hacker & Security analyst at Unocoin. 
- Sunny Ray: Cofounder & President at India's leading bitcoin platform, Unocoin.

Click here for more details:
http://www.meetup.com/IndiaBitcoin/events/228032749/?_af=event&_af_eid=228032749

Seating is limited, please book early.

Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) is a new and exciting way to acquire bitcoin – the first of its kind.

Rather than spending all of your money on bitcoin at once, this is a more conservative approach towards investing in bitcoin. This technique allows you to commit a fixed INR amount towards bitcoin on a regular schedule irrespective of the price. You need to fund your INR wallet and schedule the orders to start with SIP. You may invest as little as 50 INR per interval. This feature helps with financial discipline by averaging out your cost and there by reducing your risk and exposure.

Whats more? Enjoy 0% transaction fee until April 30th, 2015.



Source:  https://www.unocoin.com/post/346

Happy New Year,

We recently launched IndiaBitcoin.com: News, Prices and Analysis

India Bitcoin provides you with all the resources required to make informed decisions about bitcoin in India.  We are now also releasing popular articles from news sources all over the world which are about Bitcoin developments around the world.  

[one small hint:  if you hit the India Bitcoin logo on the top of the page, it reloads an entirely new instance of the website, give it a try:  www.IndiaBitcoin.com]

If there's an article you would like featured, do let us know.  

All the Best,
Team Unocoin

We've made a whole bunch of changes/updates to the IndiaBitcoin.com site, do let us know what you think. 

We're already receiving ~100 visitors a day.  Thanks for all the support. 

just fixed/edited it, it should be working now. 

I agree, Mr. Rajan has exceptional foresight.  The fact that he's saying that we will be moving towards a cashless society in the context of bitcoin is very noteworthy. 

IndiaBitcoin.com is now home to all things related to India & Bitcoin.   It currently includes:  

- easy to find and relevant news article related to India and Bitcoin from Coindesk, Bitcoin Magazine, Techcrunch, Economic Times, Times of India, etc.  
- links to all India Bitcoin social media channels (bitcointalk, twitter, facebook, reddit, etc.).
- BTC/INR price ticker...
- mobile friendly...

Hope you enjoy it...

As usual, feedback is always welcome.  Please do note, however, that the site is currently under beta.  If we are missing any important articles released over the past year, do let us know.  

We are also currently looking for unique blog posts from the community.  If you have a piece you would like to have featured on IndiaBitcoin.com, do let us know.

IndiaBitcoin.com is now home to all things related to India & Bitcoin.   It currently includes:  

- easy to find and relevant news article related to India and Bitcoin from Coindesk, Bitcoin Magazine, Techcrunch, Economic Times, Times of India, etc.  
- links to all India Bitcoin social media channels (bitcointalk, twitter, facebook, reddit, etc.).
- BTC/INR price ticker...
- mobile friendly...

Hope you enjoy it...

As usual, feedback is always welcome.  Please do note, however, that the site is currently under beta.  If we are missing any important articles released over the past year, do let us know.  

We are also currently looking for unique blog posts from the community.  If you have a piece you would like to have featured on IndiaBitcoin.com, do let us know.  

I like your enthusiasm.  Before we start a world wide revolution, let's begin with India. 

Let's systematically approach all of these companies in 2015.  Its time we put India on the bitcoin map!  If we see that there is a market need for any one of these companies to accept bitcoin, perhaps we can all approach them together, like at the same time.   

I put together this google spreadsheet to keep track of all the companies that we're bringing up here:  http://bit.ly/1wX9Fcc

Please keep the suggestions coming. 

Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.  After having been in the bitcoin scene for a couple years now, I've come to the conclusion that the price of bitcoin is really one of the least exciting aspects of bitcoin.  Once you come to term with the fact that bitcoin is the internet of money, or that it is digital gold, or that it is an *almost* free protocol for value transfer, or that its a million other amazing things, that's when the fun begins.   

See, large merchants in India will benefit directly by accepting bitcoin.  By accepting bitcoin, they may reduce the number of fraud charges occurring online down to zero.  How amazing is that? 

They may also reduce their cost down to zero (whereas credit card companies often charge upward of 2 or 3%). 

So as you can see, by having a large merchant like Microsoft or Dell accept bitcoin, it DOES create downward pressure on the bitcoin price, you are right.  But at the same time, there is an ever growing demand for bitcoin.  People are buying bitcoin like never before, and this trend will continue because companies like Microsoft and Dell are accepting bitcoin.  So bitcoin has become this entity which serves multiple purposes for different people. 

Regarding price, I recommend that people not put more than 1% of their total wealth into bitcoin.  Keep in mind that bitcoin is still very early and very experimental.  Do not invest more than you can afford to lose.  Having said that, in the next 10 years, I still reckon that the price of each bitcoin will be multiple orders of magnitude higher than what it is today.  I say this because once large scale financial institutions get involved, once the average person is easily able to put a little bit of their investment portfolio into bitcoin, then we'll have the next upward spike.  When that'll take place?  Who knows...

Dashingriddler and I have been close friends and business partners for quite some time.  We have worked together on various bitcoin projects (Bangalore Bitcoin Meetups, Global Bitcoin Conference, CoinMonk Mining & Physical bitcoin, etc.).  Today, we both represent Unocoin and even though I'm an engineer, my strength is mostly in business development while dashingriddler is much more technically savvy.  Not to mention, he's also the fearless leader and CEO of Unocoin. 

Check out our new team page to learn more about who's who:   
https://www.unocoin.com/team

As I mentioned before, we're growing fast.  If anyone out there is interested in working with a VC backed bitcoin company in India, we're always looking for strong front-end and back-end programmers.

All the best,
Team Unocoin

For a limited time offer, Unocoin is offering free bitcoin in India - click here for coupon code:

https://twitter.com/unocoin/status/546283959085068288

We would also love to see people be able to buy food from their favourite grocery store with bitcoin.  Let's make it happen!  Which grocery store should we approach?  I'm guessing an online, nation-wide, grocery store may make the most sense.  They could use Unocoin's merchant gateway to process their orders.  By processing their orders through Unocoin, the business can have their clients' bitcoin turned into INR deposited into their bank account in less than 24 hours. 

Let's get a list together of all the merchants we would like to see accepting bitcoin in 2015.  I'll get it started...

1)  Airtel
2)  Flipkart
3)  Ola
4)  Cleartrip
5)  ?

See here for more details:  https://www.unocoin.com/merchants

We'll get someone to help you out immediately.  For future reference, feel free to reach out to our customer service directly at support@unocoin.com. 

You're welcome.  Just curious, what makes you believe that there are only 5k people involved in bitcoin in India?  We (www.unocoin.com) alone serve nearly twice as many customers.  (And that number is growing exponentially!)  

Don't quote me on this, but I feel that the number of bitcoiners in India could be closer to 25-30k, quite a bit higher than 5k.  To your point, I still think it's very impressive that Mr. Rajan is speaking so intelligently about bitcoin, I have a ton of respect for him.  Let's not stop here, let's all use this opportunity to educate the Indian public even further.   Bitcoin truly has the potential to bank the unbanked (or unbank the banked), to reduce the cost of inward remittance by an order magnitude, and bring about micro-financing in a way never seen before.  Let's not get left behind.  The bitcoin movement is happening, each and every one of you can make a difference.  

Just like how many Indian people were able to leap frog wired phone lines and go directly to mobile.  Bitcoin offers us a similar opportunity, leapfrog traditional financial services and take part in one that is open source, decentralized, and as the smart student refers to it as:  'free banking'.  Love it!  Go bitcoin...

Join the discussion on reddit...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2qiumb/reserve_bank_of_india_governer_raghuram_rajan/

We just hit a landmark moment with respect to bitcoin in India.  Listen to Reserve Bank of India's Governor, Mr. Rajan, speak eloquently about bitcoin:  

http://youtu.be/Mu97yGzO_ok?t=22m29s

interviewer:  “anybody here plan to go into ecommerce?”
smart student:  “My question is not exactly related to ecommerce, but to a more important topic of bitcoins.”
governor:  “nothing is more important than ecommerce.”
interviewer:  “oh no, bitcoin is fascinating, let’s tackle that.”
smart student:  “reading your book 'fault lines', it comes out as you are somebody who is not pro government intervention.  Being from the Chicago School of Thought, you propagate more free markets.  So I want to know, bitcoin has specifically very good advantages for a developing nation.  So, I want to know, what is your view as a regulator on free banking, and having more of equitable currencies floating in the market?”
governor:  “See, I think we’re still watching the evolution of these kinds of currencies, one of the problems that we envisaged with bitcoin, one of course was security issues and you’ve seen that they’re not as secure as people thought they were and there have been stolen bitcoins and so on.  But the second issue was the fluctuation in value.  For money, you require something called a stable store of value and something that fluctuates so much is less effective in use as money.  There are some lessons to be learned from the technologies that bitcoin has employed, some of them are useful, some of them are worrisome.  And uh, we have to see how we take on board such technologies.  I have no doubt that down the line, we will be moving towards primarily a cashless society and we’ll have some kind of currencies like this which will be at work.  For us at the Reserve Bank, this may happen in 10 to 20 years from now, but we’ll have to figure out how we make money because the way we generate most of our revenue is through forms of seniorage.  People are willing to hold currency free of interest and that’s how we make money, but we’ll figure that out.  But I think these virtual currencies will certainly get much better, much safer and over time will be the form of transaction, and that’s for sure.”
interviewer: “and India will adopt them at some point?  we’re not going to reject them out of hand?”
governor: “you know, in a sense, credit cards are already performing some of that role.  The amount of rupees that flow through your hands I presume are far less than used to before credit cards.  So this is going to go all around, you’ll have near field devices which you just tap and go.  I mean, all that we want to permit.  
interviewer:  “you want to permit?”
governor:  “yes, we want to permit.  I mean we’re not saying we’re going to lose money therefore we won't do it, we’ll find some other way of getting money, maybe the government will fund us eventually."  

Yes, we've had our @unocoin twitter account since 2011.  Before transforming into a bitcoin wallet platform with buy/sell services on December 2013, Unocoin.com was a news portal for all things bitcoin in India.  We have plans to launch a similar news portal / community hub very soon.  Stay tuned...

PS:  thanks for the feedback about the free bitcoin offer.  For those wanting free bitcoin in India - limited time offer - click here:
https://twitter.com/unocoin/status/546283959085068288