Consensus Conference Illuminates Cryptocurrency, DAOs, NFTs, Metaverses, and More in Austin – SiliconHills

Consensus 2022 kicked off in Austin this week.

It’s a convention placed on by media firm, CoinDesk, which focuses on Net 3, cryptocurrency, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, generally known as DAOs, Nonfungible Tokens, or NFTs, Metaverses, and extra.

A number of hundred folks attended the primary Consensus in 2015, and this one has greater than 17,000 registered ticketholders. A normal admission ticket is almost $1,600 and the dearer ProPass and Piranha Passes are each bought out.

Consensus options greater than 600 audio system on 23 phases and is unfold all through the Austin Conference Heart, Hilton, Fairmount, and numerous different venues downtown. It has a really feel of South by Southwest on a smaller scale.

There’s a particular feeling of FOMO with all of the programming and exhibitions occurring directly together with dozens of blissful hours, events, gallery reveals, DJs, bands, and even a on line casino night time.

The occasion can be happening throughout a risky time within the U.S. financial system with the COVID-19 pandemic nonetheless lingering, inflation hovering, skyrocketing fuel costs, and tensions created from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, mentioned Michael Casey, Chief Content material Officer for CoinDesk, throughout his Friday opening remarks. Cryptocurrency, just like the inventory market, can be experiencing some turbulence. Bitcoin is hovering round $29,333, down from its all-time excessive of $68,990 in November of 2021. And Ethereum is all the way down to $1,676, from its all-time excessive of $4,865, additionally in November of 2021.

On prime of that, there have been cryptocurrency failures and scams, Casey mentioned.

Lately, the collapse of the Terra mission, “led to mixed losses of about $60 billion between the stablecoin, also called UST, and its sister cryptocurrency luna,” in keeping with CNBC. A number of classes at Consensus look at what went incorrect.

“Because the begin of 2021, greater than 46,000 folks have reported shedding over $1 billion in crypto to scams,” in keeping with the Federal Commerce Fee.

However regardless of the large volatility, failed firms, and scams, cryptocurrency has gained a robust foothold globally and more and more within the U.S. In September of 2021, the Republic of El Salvador turned the primary nation to undertake Bitcoin as authorized tender.  Consensus has some members of Congress and the Biden Administration in attendance and as audio system discussing regulation and client safety. However they’re additionally speaking about establishing a stablecoin and making a digital greenback.

Lately China unveiled its digital yuan or e-CNY, a digital model of its sovereign forex that’s not a cryptocurrency however is as a substitute issued and managed by the Individuals’s Financial institution of China, in keeping with CNBC.  

And NFTs have opened a complete new method for artists and creatives to earn cash within the digital age. Some main manufacturers together with Mastercard, Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, and the NBA have additionally embraced NFTs as a strategy to interact with their audiences.

There’s additionally numerous discuss on the convention concerning the Metaverse, which wasn’t actually a subject when Consensus held its final convention in New York in 2019.

Consensus organizers determined to maneuver the occasion to Austin as a result of it has the infrastructure to deal with massive crowds,  Casey mentioned.

“It was an enormous choice to depart New York. However Austin made it a easy transition,” he mentioned.

Mayor Steve Adler mentioned Austin is called a metropolis with a tolerance for risk-taking and that’s what creates innovation and drives progress.

“It is a metropolis that’s revolutionary, inventive, and entrepreneurial to its core,” Adler mentioned.