Crypto Takes New York City By Storm, Literally

By Sumedha Bose

New York City was home to this year’s Consensus conference as part of the Blockchain Week. The city was however taken aback when a near-tornado descended on the financial capital of the world. The conference drew nearly 8,500 people to the city.

The organizers had shifted the venue of the summit from the Marriott Marquis to the allegedly more spacious Hilton Midtown in an unsuccessful attempt to accommodate the ever-increasing attendance this year. The venue was so crowded that one could not walk without rubbing elbows with other attendees.

All the bigshots of the cryptocurrency universe were present there. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and Twitter, spoke of his hope that Bitcoin will one day become the Internet’s “native currency.”

Fred Wilson who is an investor in the Union Square Ventures was there along with Balaji Srinivasan, newly appointed chief technology officer of Coinbase, the biggest U.S. Bitcoin exchange. They held a discourse over the future of money, entrepreneurship, and fundraising.

On Monday night, a dinner was hosted by cryptocurrency giant Circle’s co-founders at Gramercy Tavern, where they talked about their decision to accept an infusion of capital from Bitmain, China’s biggest Bitcoin miner. This investment boosted the company’s valuation to nearly $3 billion.

The celebrations continued with a Snoop Dogg concert hosted by Ripple, stockpiler of XRP, the world’s third-most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

However, a huge lightning bolt struck New York at that moment and illuminated the entire city. Since then New York has been seeing loads of thunderstorms and incessant showers. This storm has wreaked havoc over the city already, causing a few deaths.

Amidst this storm, the Blockchain Week went on and there was a cruise held aboard Cornucopia Majesty, a luxury party ship that cruised through the Hudson River gloom. Decentral, a Canadian cryptocurrency shop, had sponsored this cruise. On boarding the ship, the cryptocurrency enthusiasts were welcomed with a clip that featured a computer-generated avatar of Anthony Di Iorio, a co-founder of Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency network after Bitcoin. The cruise braved the stormy waters of Hudson River and carried on.