Post-Show Recap: Highlights from the “Off the Charts!” Virtual Conference
Thanks for watching the “Off the Charts!” Virtual Conference. Those who tuned in caught some amazing speakers, exciting panels and fireside chats in an online event that was filled with big moments.
We celebrated our three year anniversary and gathered with speakers from around the world to cover topics as diverse as policy and regulation, blockchain and global health, data and analytics, blockchain education, driving crypto adoption in emerging markets, trading strategies, and more.
Here are some highlights from each segment of our 10-hour, global multi-region event.
Highlights from the Europe & UK Session
We kicked things off with our first panels of the day on Shaping the Future of Policy and Regulation and Bridging Crypto and Traditional Finance.
In the latter panel, Charles Hoskinson, Founder of Cardano and IOHK, weighed in on crypto’s journey towards mainstream acceptance, explaining “You can't just expect hundreds of billions of dollars to enter the crypto space overnight. Usually, it's done indirectly or in small amounts, then overtime confidence builds up. So it's a process and it’s really moving along much better than it was in 2017.”
Speakers agreed on crypto’s growing influence. Jaime Burke, Founder & CEO of Outlier Ventures, reflected on the coronavirus’ impact on crypto adoption, saying “With everything that’s going with COVID now, how nations are responding to monetary policies and stimulus - I think it’s going to accelerate adoption, the demand side, increase and drive capital into the crypto asset class.”
Towards the end of the session, we also officially launched the Binance Card, a crypto debit card that allows users to pay for transactions using crypto, and spend without having to convert crypto into cash. Initially, Binance Card will support BNB, BUSD, and Bitcoin.
Highlights from the Asia-Pacific Session
In our second Asia-Pacfic segment, the theme of increasing adoption continued, with Justin Sun, founder of TRON and CEO of BitTorrent, offering his thoughts on ways to amplify crypto awareness and usage. Citing BitTorrent’s large user base, Justin says, “[the] only thing we need to do is integrate the blockchain technology into the BitTorrent ecosystem,” before “100 Million [bittorrent users] gain an exposure of the blockchain industry.” Later, Don Tapscott, founder of the Blockchain Research Institute, hosted a stirring keynote speech on the power of blockchain technology to address challenges in the world. He identified the invention of blockchain as a key innovation in computer science, as it solved the double spend problem, a previous barrier to digital currency, where the same token could theoretically be “spent” more than once.
Highlights from the Africa & Middle East Session
Akon, singer-songwriter and President & Co-Founder of Akoin made a headline appearance in a can’t-miss panel with CZ, CEO of Binance on Driving Crypto Adoption and Innovation in Rising Economies, proclaiming that, “crypto is going to be the future of what Africa needs to be,” before sharing a story of when he was unable to exchange his money overseas while traveling, as well as the frustrations of dealing with fiat currencies’ limitations.
Gin Chao, Strategy Officer at Binance, shared plans to expand Binance’s presence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including increasing the size of our local teams, both internally and externally, and working with local governments and regulators to grow MENA’s blockchain ecosystem.
In a later segment, during a panel dedicated to showcasing how crypto has been mobilizing the unbanked in Africa, Yele Bademosi, the Founder / CEO of Bundle Africa, revealed that about 60% of people in Africa are unbanked, and those who don’t have bank accounts still have cash. “We need to start thinking about how to connect the cash economy to the crypto economy,” says Yele.
Highlights from the Russia & CIS Session
In an insightful panel on intelligent investing, Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, Crunchbase, and Arrington XRP Capital, spoke frankly about his pragmatic investing strategy when it comes to blockchain and crypto, admitting that, “instead of predicting where things are going, I try to find companies that are being led by really high-quality entrepreneurs, and back them and then let them do their thing.”
Viewers were treated to a lively panel on trading strategies from trading experts, as well as sessions on DeFi and user privacy. Afterwards, we heard from Cliff Liang, a Direct of Solutions Architecture at Amazon Web Services, on how AWS Cloud enables expanding organizations to build at scale.
Highlights from the North America & LATAM Session
As the conference neared its conclusion, the final session picked things up with an engaging fireside chat with Perianne Boring, the Founder & President of The Chamber of Digital Commerce on exploring the roadmap to crypto adoption. She described her efforts bridging the gap between tech companies and traditional, incumbent policy-makers, in order to shape policy on blockchain technology and boost regulatory clarity.
On another panel covering scalability in blockchain development with Nick White, Co-Founder of Harmony, Mo Dong, Co-Founder and CEO of Celer Network, Terry Wang, Co-Founder of IOST, and moderator Lucas Nuzzi from CoinMetrics, Beniamin Mincu, the Founder & CEO of Elrond Network described the twin challenges of scalability and user experience when it comes to reaching mainstream adoption blockchain and crypto.
Binance goes “Off the Charts!”
Overall, the “Off the Charts!” Virtual Conference shaped up to be one of the biggest blockchain events of the year, with more than 30 panels and keynotes in six languages, over 140 speakers, and 20 hours of live footage between two stages.
Viewers received opportunities to win 333 pieces of special limited-edition NFT collectibles, Binance gear and merch, as well as other giveaway items. Finally, we honored key members of the crypto and Binance community with our inaugural Binance Awards.
Discover the winners here: Binance Philanthropist of the Year Award
BNB Chain Wallet of the Year Award
Binance Angel of the Year Award
Binance Influencers of the Year Award
Binance Launchpad Project of the Year Award
Thanks for joining us for one of the year’s biggest blockchain events. If you missed out or want to revisit your favorite segments, follow our YouTube channel and stay tuned as we release the full event footage over the coming days.
Our Media Sponsors and Partners
The Binance “Off the Charts!” Virtual Conference is made possible by our media partners and sponsors.
Media Partners: Cointelegraph, Decrypt, Nairametrics, Paxnet News, Seoul Economics Decenter, Hankyung Economics Newspaper, TechM, The CoinTribune, 36KR·Odaily, ChainNews, ChainDD, Newsworks, D.Street, CCTV News, Coinreaders, BeiNews, BlockTimesTV
And a special thanks to our sponsors:
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