Massive Consensus Conference Succumbs To Blockchain ‘Echo Chamber’

8,500 blockchain and cryptocurrency fans packed the New York Hilton Midtown to its gills this week in what organizers were calling the largest blockchain conference ever. Yet, while excitement around these technologies are indubitably at an all-time high, much of the activity at the show diverged from business reality.

Panel at Consensus (R to L): Frederick W. Smith, Founder and CEO of FedEx; Robert Carter, EVP of FedEx Information Services and CIO; and author Don Tapscott (moderator).
Panel at Consensus (R to L): Frederick W. Smith, Founder and CEO of FedEx; Robert Carter, EVP of FedEx Information Services and CIO; and author Don Tapscott (moderator).

The problem: most of the noise around both blockchain and crypto is little more than the community talking to itself – a massive ‘echo chamber’ that in its final analysis promises no lasting business value for its participants.

This echo chamber filled with schemers, scammers, speculators, and their various marks did not account for the entirety of the conversations at Consensus, however.

In contrast to the carnival huckster atmosphere dominating the event were firms focused on the other side of the blockchain equation: those seemingly rare but essential business models where blockchain may actually deliver real business value – in spite of all the nonsense at surrounding booths.

A bifurcation of sorts, therefore, was evident at Consensus: the sober, serious participants focused on business value vs. the insanity that is the frothy blockchain/crypto world today.

Read the entire article at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2018/05/17/massive-consensus-conference-succumbs-to-blockchain-echo-chamber/.

Intellyx publishes the Agile Digital Transformation Roadmap poster, advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives, and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, IBM is an Intellyx customer. None of the other organizations mentioned in this article are Intellyx customers. The author does not own, nor does he intend to own, any cryptocurrency or other cryptotokens. Image credit: Jason Bloomberg.

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