Welcome to the London Blockchain Conference – the biggest blockchain and web3 event of the year. The London Blockchain Conference is the premier event dedicated to exploring the transformative impact of blockchain technology in our world.
Carefully curated speakers delivered cutting-edge ideas and insights, ensuring attendees are at the forefront of innovation. With a focus on real-world applications, the conference also demonstrated how blockchain is revolutionising industries and governments alike.
Below is a recap of some of the major technical discussions on the first day. The BSV blockchain is an environmentally friendly, fast, and robust choice for enterprise-grade applications. It offers reliable and scalable technology that is ideal for businesses and organisations looking to leverage the power of blockchain.
Virtual and in-person tickets for the London Blockchain Conference are still available. Video highlights will be available at a later date with a full recap of every panel and presentation to follow.
Blockchain 101 – Introduction to Blockchain Infrastructure
Murray opened the conference by explaining how blockchain technology introduces a new way of interacting with applications and services that have become integral to our digitally connected world.
This included some of the key concepts that underpin the evolving infrastructure that powers blockchain technology, the current landscape of blockchain infrastructure, and how this infrastructure can integrate into existing applications and services.
Some of the key features and abilities of the BSV blockchain include:
- Smart contracts;
- Tokenisation-ready;
- Regulatory compliant;
- Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) via the SPV Wallet.
The RockWallet journey – Evolving from DeLorean to Tesla
RockWallet is a self-custodial, multicurrency wallet that makes it easy to discover, buy, use, and trade digital assets quickly and securely. In his presentation, Bailey talked about the self-custody wallet company’s evolution and learnings since launching during the crypto winter and scandals of 2022, to the rapid growth and success of today.
‘RockWallet’s early days were like the DeLorean in the movie Back to the Future, basically a car with stuff bolted on that only Doc Brown could drive. Today, the company would rather draw inspiration from Tesla; so slick and easy to use that it can drive itself.’
He also outlined the company’s philosophy to provide utility and value, and to serve customers well, including an unwavering commitment to the customer experience. Finally, Bailey provided a glimpse into the product roadmap and what to expect from the company in the future.
Cybersecurity future: Blockchain’s role in enhanced security
- John Velissarios (Founder & Director of Otranto Limited)
- Robert Huber (TechLead at Veridat)
- Samuel Shamber (Founder and CEO of Secure AI)
- Joseph Kearney (Research Associate at the University of Kent/Block Sphere)
- Thanos Tsavlis (CEO & CoFounder of Cyberscope)
Join us to discover how blockchain technology is reshaping the landscape of cybersecurity. Learn how blockchain enhances data integrity, transparency, and resilience against cyber threats. Delve into practical applications such as decentralised identity management, supply chain security, smart contracts, and defence against DDoS attacks. Gain valuable insights into the potential of blockchain to revolutionise cybersecurity and safeguard our digital future effectively.
The importance of micropayments in the Web3 revolution
In an evolving digital economy, micropayments will emerge as a pivotal component of the Web3 revolution. This is the view of Bernhard Müller who discussed the transformative potential of micropayments, particularly through stablecoins, in reshaping financial interactions.
Centi’s platform is engineered to support seamless, instant transactions of any size, providing an extensive range of financial applications that span across banking, fintech, and beyond. Each stablecoin token, backed by a Swiss bank guarantee and valued at one cent, exemplifies Centi’s commitment to security and adherence to regulatory standards.
Using stablecoin tokens on the BSV blockchain, Centi has demonstrated unparalleled transaction speed and cost-efficiency capability. Centi’s technology ensures median processing times fall below three seconds, equaling the convenience of contactless credit card payments and outperforming the “instant payments” banks are offering.
Müller also discussed the role of micropayments in financial inclusion, reducing transaction costs, and facilitating global transactions. He also discussed how micropayments can empower both businesses and consumers in the Web3 ecosystem.
The powerful pairing of AI and blockchain
- Kaitlin Zhang (CEO of Oval Branding)
- Scott Zoldi (Chief Analytics Officer at FICO)
- Christopher Davison (CEO of Clearwater Partners)
- Alessio Pagani (Research Director at nChain)
- Ray Sharma (Founder of EVP)
This session offered essential insights into how blockchain and Artificial intelligence will work in tandem to shape our future. The panel touched on:
- How the combination of AI and blockchain is being used to solve complex problems around transparency and compliance;
- Strategies to prepare for and adapt to the merging landscapes of AI and blockchain;
- The broader implications of these technologies on society, economy, and governance.
The panel also touched on some of the latest advancements and trends in AI and blockchain and how businesses can capitalise on the technological shifts ahead.
Blockchain technology – Powering the future of finance
As traditional financial market infrastructure faces increased scrutiny and inefficiencies, blockchain is emerging as a disruptive force, and the new backbone of digital financial market infrastructure (dFMI). This is the view of Richard Baker (Founder & CEO of Tokenovate).
Tokenovate is a UK-based financial services technology company providing distributed financial market infrastructure and smart legal contracts. What sets Tokenovate apart from competitors is that it implements the BSV blockchain, marking a significant leap by integrating blockchain technology into platforms that drive global financial markets.
Baker noted that a transformative change is coming to financial markets, fuelled by a desire to deliver better end-to-end solutions and remain regulatory compliant. Major global financial players, including Blackrock and JP Morgan, now believe that asset tokenisation will happen quickly, accelerating broader digitisation and opening up a number of exciting possibilities, he said.
In his session, Baker discussed compelling opportunities for the market, such as tokenisation of digital assets and collateral mobility, achieving efficiency gains through smart contracts, faster settlements and accurate reporting.
He also discussed the hard challenges that must be solved, such as making smart technology choices, working with protectionist incumbents, and supporting fragmented regulatory environments.
eBook: Engineering a Smarter and Greener Financial World with Tokenovate
How Teranode delivers blockchain scaling for Enterprise use
- Siggi Oskarsson (Director of Teranode at BSV Blockchain)
- Jordan Kramsky (Solutions Architect at AWS)
- Behrad Babaee (Principal Architect at Aerospike)
This panel focused on the pivotal role of Teranode in driving enterprise-level adoption of the BSV blockchain. The group discussed how Teranode’s groundbreaking capabilities are poised to revolutionise the blockchain landscape and unlock new possibilities for businesses worldwide.
The team also discussed some of the key features and capabilities of Teranode, including:
- Scalability: This includes how Teranode enables the BSV blockchain network to handle a vast number of transactions per second, paving the way for large-scale enterprise applications and services.
- Low transaction fees: The team discussed how Teranode aims to keep transaction fees low even during periods of high demand, providing cost-effective solutions for businesses conducting numerous transactions.
- Reliability and stability: Teranode enhances the reliability and stability of the BSV blockchain network, offering a robust infrastructure for mission-critical enterprise use cases.
- Compliance and regulation: Understand how Teranode’s features facilitate compliance with regulations and industry standards, ensuring businesses can meet their regulatory requirements seamlessly.
In January, the BSV Blockchain R&D team announced groundbreaking features for Teranode that will significantly boost network efficiency and speed, pushing BSV’s capabilities to one million transactions per second in the not-too-distant future.
Such technological leaps will enable mass transactions on blockchain-based infrastructure, supporting data processing on an unprecedented scale, at a fraction of traditional costs, while laying the foundation for a more secure financial ecosystem.
Teranode solves vertical scaling challenges on the BSV blockchain by serving high-volume transaction nodes for enterprise and government use. Whether contracting with nodes or running their own, these clients drive the Teranode initiative.
Teranode was recently extended and sustained testing on a Proof of Concept implementation began at the end of February, with a full node release later in 2024. This is a ground-up rewrite of the BSV blockchain architecture, designed to scale horizontally and provide new microservices for developers, applications, and users.
Protocol custodian BSV Blockchain revealed a more service-oriented approach to the network’s work. The new features include ‘modularised’ functions such as transaction and block validation, plus block assembly into services that run only when required.
The Teranode upgrade is critical for the BSV blockchain’s unbounded scaling potential and will deliver faster, more secure and cheaper transactions for all.
Public or private blockchains – How to evaluate which is the best for your business
- John Velissarios (Founder & Director at Otranto Limited)
- Giovanni Franzese (Partner Strategy at nChain)
- Dr. Dean Rakic (CEO/Chief Scientist at Blockcontrol)
- Muneeb Shah (Director- Head of Digital Assets Tech Consulting at EY)
- Neeraj Srivastava (CIO at Rockwallet)
- Sonny Mohanty (Head of Ecosystems Ventures at XDC Network)
After testing the waters with private blockchains, savvy enterprises are increasingly moving to implement private data storage solutions on public blockchains. This was the key focus of this panel discussion which considered how different businesses evaluate which option is best for their business.
The experts discussed different implementations of blockchain in the enterprise space and the real-world business learnings from each type of blockchain including public, private and hybrid setups. The experts also discussed real-world use cases that have been implemented in their businesses so you can take their findings to make the right decision for yours.
Smart Contract development
A key innovation introduced with blockchain technology is the enabling of smart contracts. Smart contracts are computer programs that can be stored on the blockchain and executed when certain conditions are met. In this session, Šinkec discussed the new types of applications and services that can be built using smart contracts, and the development tools and libraries available to build them.
sCrypt is a high-level programming language for writing smart contracts on the BSV blockchain. It was created to make it easier for developers to write and deploy smart contracts on the BSV blockchain.
sCrypt aims to provide a familiar programming experience similar to mainstream languages like JavaScript, making it more accessible to developers who are not necessarily experts in blockchain or cryptography. Smart contracts written in sCrypt are executed on the BSV blockchain, enabling various use cases such as tokenisation, decentralised finance (DeFi), and more.
The BSV blockchain supports smart contracts with its Forth-like stack-based Script language, but writing smart contracts in native Script is cumbersome and error-prone. sCrypt is designed to facilitate writing complex smart contracts running on-chain.
Smart contracts on the BSV blockchain are meticulously designed to meet the needs of enterprises, institutions, government agencies, and individuals, providing a comprehensive tokenisation solution that emphasises safety and security. While referred to as smart contracts, they are more accurately described as “self-executing digital agreements” rather than legally enforceable contracts.
The implementation of the smart contract protocol on the BSV blockchain is powered by sCrypt, a programming language tailored to ensure the seamless execution of blockchain smart contracts in the digital domain.
Šinkec explained that numerous projects leverage the smart contract functionality provided by the BSV blockchain. These range from accounting and consulting to NFT platforms, entertainment, education, and tools that support individual learning. The BSV blockchain hosts a diverse array of projects that benefit from secure, automated business processes enabled by smart contracts.
BSV Association’s blueprint for a better world
Join us for an inspiring presentation as we explore how the BSV Association is driving positive change and shaping a better world through the power of the BSV blockchain. In this session, Coxall spoke on the impactful initiatives and collaborative efforts spearheaded by the BSV Association and their ultimate goals – to create a better world for all by using the BSV blockchain to make it more:
- Free;
- Fair;
- Profitable;
- Sustainable;
- Trustworthy.
The BSV blockchain, with Teranode at its core, will be the backbone infrastructure for a global system of multiple specialised overlay networks. BSV Association is planning for specialised nodes to complement the core services provided by miners running Teranode.
Dedicated overlay networks operated by enterprise infrastructure providers will communicate with the network core. End-user applications will leverage SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) to interact within the Overlay Network.
Below is the BSV Association’s planned roadmap for 2024, with a focus on Network Topology, Protocol Stewardship, and Marketing and Education.
Building the machine-to-machine-based “Internet of Value”
- Owen Vaughan (Chief Science Director at nChain)
- Adam Feiler (Head of Partnerships at Minima)
- Patrik Gustafsson (Volvo cars)
- Richard Baker (Founder & CEO of Tokenovate)
We already live in a hyper-connected society with over 15 billion internet-enabled devices. As physical objects become increasingly connected, and assigned unique identities and capabilities, many new exciting and useful opportunities will arise.
This was the focus of this panel discussion which looked at how society is set to digitise and digitise and automate even further, in the process delegating operational decision-making to AI-based systems to help co-pilot routine activities.
The group noted that never before has the need for supervision, standards and policy been so important. From smart cities, Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) and efficient logistics, to device-to-device payments, the Internet-of-Value is emerging as the global infrastructure backbone of the connected future.
The panel also discussed how IoT and blockchain together can unlock services and solutions that improve our daily lives, and how the embedded role of IoT devices in society demands enhanced security, identity and trust, coupled with greater transparency and the ability to share data and knowledge with multiple stakeholders in a permission-based architecture.
Solving blockchain’s interoperability challenges
- Clem Chambers (CEO of Online Blockchain)
- Becky Liggero (Reporter at CoinGeek)
- Irina Benfrid (B2B Partnerships Lead at Rubic Finance)
- Ty Everett (Founding President at Project Babbage)
- Evelyn Nomayo (PhD Researcher at Trinity College)
Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionise multiple industries through decentralisation, enhanced security, and greater transparency. Despite these promises, one substantial hurdle continues to impede widespread adoption: interoperability.
This panel focused on solving blockchain’s interoperability challenges, including:
- Cross-chain compatibility bridges to single-chain standardisation;
- The challenges associated with maintaining effective communication;
- Standardised protocols across various token systems and consensus mechanisms.
The panel concluded with a discussion about how addressing these interoperability issues is paramount for unleashing the full potential of blockchain technology.
