Crypto mass-adoption, are we there yet? - Armin Bosto | itez.com

good morning everyone thanks for coming I was not expecting so many people this so early heard you had a really good party last night yeah so lots of talks here are very technical so we'll start softly today this morning with very non-technical presentation basically I want to share with you my perspective how I've seen the present the evolution of Crypt M adoption over from from its early days so I was born here what we call nowadays the region and I could not find myself like where do I belong here in this this mess felt um pretty much um isolated in in some some kind of bubble of some I don't know some weird stuff and for me to get away from from that b bubble was another bubble which is internet bubble so um pretty much grew up on internet like most of us internet generation and yeah so and I really cared about internet antiopa antia and all this kind of stuff protect the internet St kind of stuff more than protect the I don't know the or whatever so yeah and find out about I found out as from about Bitcoin in very early days and somewhere on some internet forums or whatever and for me was was some some genius idea but I never thought it will be this big that we will be here today so it was more like um uh kind of a fun thing of Internet community of of people who are like living in s kind of Internet bubble who are developing stuff open source kind of stuff and uh and um it was from from from my perspective at at that moment it was some kind of fun fun project of some internet dudes that will never become something something what is today so they did not see it as some kind of investment vehicle about some I don't know speculative investment thing but more like a fun thing of uh internet Freedom Fighters internet people who truly care about internet ecosystem and was kind of a internal thing or internal joke maybe and but people who were doing all this open source they took it very seriously they started developing all these different applications all these different uh buttons or donate buttons started appear everywhere so from sites that we were using back then like Pirate Bay like Wikipedia like uh lots of different open source projects they were actually living on bitcoin donations and this kind of uh this is kind of where where I noticed that okay Bitcoin is actually has some kind of purpose has some some this kind of uh uh use cases like uh Wikipedia for for a long time it was accepting donations on bitcoin and later on much later on in on influence of this carbon credit propaganda it was switched off and um but then I realized that actually there are actually better much it's much more important because there are some important people put an organization for for our society that are being cancelled that are being silenced they're being censored and Bitcoin as a as a as a tool started started uh to become a a tool to overcome this kind of uh censorship and all the sanctions and all this so it was much easier for for whistleblowers for journalists for all these different kind of Freedom Fighters to to continue with with their thing and to get support from the community on the other hand uh as you like for example wanted to if you want to donate to WikiLeaks not necessarily you wanted to dox yourself so it was like very important to to okay support some codes but actually to remain anonymous to remain uh protect your yourself as well as not to being associated with this kind of organization which potentially could be I don't know presented by mass mass media something something dangerous or something illegal and that turned out um pretty good investment for for this kind of organizations and uh yeah this was like 2017 when when they were celebrating when Bitcoin reached 5,000 it's was good old times yeah and but uh okay this was all inside of this internet bubble I was very curious okay does it have some use cases outside of uh of uh of of this internet bubble so I went to to denh in in Netherlands like 10 years ago if you remember there was this thing um Netherlands the Visa and MasterCard were not really accepted in anywhere there were it was either cash either Maestro so you could not really pay like with with with usual MasterCard Visa how how we are very much used to and uh Bitcoin was a way how to how to pay and in this kind there was this um channel in denh and became like so-called Bitcoin Boulevard where all bars all restaurants accepted like Bitcoin as a payment um and there was only one store that didn't accept in that street and this was a coffee shop even though like Bitcoin at that moment was presented as thing for illegal drug money here I was was example totally opposite where it was used in in cafes and restaurant but uh uh Canabis store did not accept Bitcoin and was like cash cash only and there were there were more examples like um I don't know where else there were it was very very rare use case I remember in Finland there was also like um in Finland there was there was a bar super expensive bar like I was thinking like okay like 12 beer for for1 for one beer oh that's expensive oh but I can spend this useless internet money here so yes well back back then it was it was very important like uh for me to to confirm myself that this this actually worth something and I can I can spend it something it's not just internet potion yeah and then I discovered that there is this I actually live in in RGA lva and we have this air Baltic local Airline which started accepting like crypto payments more than 10 years ago so it was very convenient uh to fly with with air Baltic uh or everywhere you just like in few clicks you pay with crypto and you fly they continued with this kind of thing recently they announced some nft campaign it's very very interesting project nft use cases of using uh like they are upgrading their loyalty system to be like actually web web three so anyone looking for for some good use case of how how nft is actually Incorporated in Europe in some kind of Corporation or use cases air Baltic nft called planes or something like that very very nice thing to to check out yeah and at the that time like I was um traveling mostly like Eastern Europe and started noticing that the crypto adoption across Eastern Europe was very much Advanced very early on so I was traveling to all this post Soviet countries this Russia Ukraine Kazakhstan and and um hello and I realized that okay I know very little these people like in Ukraine average Jo knows more about Bitcoin mining than me even though I read so many books about Bitcoin mining some random dude kid knows more he can teach me actually there there so I did not know how come and why why in this uh Eastern Europe there was this big big adoption of cryp of crypto you could actually use it any anywhere there was this um still are like near every Supermarket there are these payment terminals where you can pay anything utility bill some gift cards so so lots of different stuff you can top up this these wallets with with your crypto and pay pay for your stuff so even 10 years ago in Ukraine in Russia you could actually live just by by having crypto in crypto and for for me for that at that time for in Europe was Unthinkable well there it was already part of um usual usual life not that everyone was using crypto but there was there was an option you could you could leave Bitcoin standard in Russia in 2014 yeah and then I met met some people who who were refugees who were refugees from Syria from from all these different parts of world that got destroyed and these people they were Crossing Borders many different borders they were beaten up by police they were they were in every country they were they were attacked they were and um yeah and uh they actually carried all all their belonging in inside of their telephone was the most important thing to protect their phone and they were everything was on their phone they their keys their crypto they like kind of network of relatives traveling different countries and owning this kind of borderless digital currency was very important for them to support each other on their way on their Journey they didn't really know what what's their and loc and and destination but crypto was was a kind of instrument for them on their journey and um lots of these Advanced people who were educated who were it people and who got in situation that they need to leave their country it was their crypto was was kind of an instrument for getaway I worked with with um one one project um in 2017 18 it was focused on financial inclusion in Africa and was really interesting because um there I realized that Africans they understand crypto much better than than the Europeans because in Africa there was this a mobile Revolution so Africans they never used computers actually so they skipped the computer era and immediately went to mobile era and all a whatever you think about African they all have at least two tele phones they have internet everywhere they struggle with with um with energy but they all have phones and um there was this thing like 15 20 years ago there was this thing you know like prepaid prepaid uh phone phone card you can top it up and actually you can spend this money like you can pay for taxi you can pay for groceries and this is how actually mobile credit pre prepaid credit started to become currency in Kenya and South subsaharan Africa and for for Africans it was they already like understood that money can be stored on your phone it's not Bank behind it it's not anything behind it it's just your money and your phone and it works for us Europeans like we cannot still understand it but yeah but Africans like for them was was a normal thing so when they got introduced to bitcoin and other crypto for them oh okay that's like like Mesa but without centralized Telecom okay perfect so there was this this project that we were working it was like focused on really the the most discriminated people who never had chance to open a bank account who never who were never part of global economy there are like several billion of these people who are excluded to excluded and they don't have even chance to be included in in economy so and there was this user who found me he had some support request support did not resolve it somehow he found me and he started chatting with me I started solving his problem so we we kept keep in touch so finally I had direct communication with user I had validation that we working on something real not some scam project that is like just speaking speaking stories about making a world better place but actually there is there's this here use case of of a guy who is burundian Refugee in Tanzania there is like massive very big Refugee camping in Tanzania for these bores people and they're stuck there they are they have food they have shelter but they cannot leave so practically they are in prison they don't have uh option to open bank account to get a job so they are just living inside of this prison and that's their life and they they somehow discovered this I don't know even how how they actually discovered about this uh cryptocurrency project for adoption of unbank people but they start they started onboarding each other they started we incentivized very much like uh this growth and it became like local local economy so he started constantly like to send me phot thought how they actually use this uh cryptocurrency within refugee camp I remember once um he was writing me in panic and we we had some security updates so that today there were no uh transactions or so so we kind of like stopped Network for a few hours just because of um of the some security update and he was in panic I need to return my debt please please tell me why this transaction doesn't go through I'm looking at him man it's Sunday I mean if you would had bank account that would be totally normal that you cannot send money in on on Sunday but yeah like we we solve this issue like within one hour and it was all okay but yeah for him it was like I need immediately I need to return my Deb inside of this so this is how in Africa there was this big growth of and still is like people people are using utilizing Bitcoin as as a as a real thing as a utility that sols their uh everyday Necessities it's not just a thing to in invest and pump and dump kind of stuff um yeah and had had this um also interesting experiences with with this digital Nomad communities there were this people who who travel around the world who just with their laptop they work wherever they they find the table they just keep working and lots of them they were like accepting payment as a Bitcoin like you had earlier early days is they switch location one day they are in Thailand at the days they Indonesia Vietnam Cambodia and they were just circling around this circle it was very convenient that to to use this Global Currency between each other rather than having all these different currencies some some you don't even understand what's written there on that this paper note and yeah so this was this was interesting case how how I over seen the adoption of of crypto as a some kind of um internet like a tool for international hubs in order to be easier to to exch exchange money exchange pay for service is and was very nice example of of that actually crypto adoption is H happening and um yeah when when I met these local agents I realize they really care about this digital collectibl their g game items it's so sacal for them this game I mean I mean I like games a lot but I not that passionate about some it them in a game but for them it's it's something really important and they really want some game to if they own something a game that they own it that it's there and uh like all this um application of of crypto as as a owning a digital asset it became clear for me just by seeing this passionate Asian kids how they are playing games how they're collecting their characters and it's it's one one of the most important things in their life and okay and this was this was a an interesting use case of of of how how crypto he's adopted so when an nft era came it was for me clear where it came from and why it makes sense yeah and there is this um also in South America if you don't know in South America it's crazy like there is like big hyperinflation like like what you earn in morning is worthless in the evening and people are struggling very much with local currencies in Venezuela like um you need like like this stack of cash just to pay for coffee and um and yeah it's very similar like a local money here in 1993 and um yeah and in in and for them Bitcoin and and stable coins May mainly became the main thing of of of of exchange main thing so in in in Argentina if you ask someone would you like to get stable coin or artinian pesos he was 100% say you no stable coin don't need this pesos thing because I don't know what will be with this with this local money in the evening tomorrow it's it's there is totally less lack of trust in in local government in local Curr Y and and hope that it will some some sometime recover um but there is this country El Salvador El Salvador created this uh uh Bitcoin country where you actually when you come to to El Salvador you can pay with Bitcoin lightning you can pay with for Visa you can function 100% everything in country works on on on bitcoin and it's like legal tender can purchase house you can purchase pay you for your taxes what whatever so El Salvador is this kind of example of of total adoption of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency inside of country and it's a place worth checking out I would like I would like to go to El Salvador would you come with me to El Salvador okay we can check air Baltic yeah and there were this examples also like we became very push in in in in this cor corporate culture but also and that's so when when Tesla started selling selling their cars for for I mean and and everything for for Bitcoin and Dodge I think so first use case of of real real life usage of of mem coins yeah and and this this was like kind of a signal for for other brands and other other companies okay this is actually means of means of payment and as as a as a Tesla as El musk like kind of P pushed this crypto adoption more in the US and globally into into big big Brands and of course this here we have we have another stage of um of crypto adoption these are like big institutions big players the the serious game is just starting actually so by this um adopting B Bitcoin ETFs all these big hedge funds penion funds are now hedging against inflation using Bitcoin ETFs soon we will have other ET cryptocurrency ETFs and this is opening a totally new new game in crypto adoption where big institutions are actually coming coming to to like real adoption of of crypto Assets in the in their in their portfolios and and uh so yeah but where we are where we are it's still very very very early so all this that I told you was a journey of 15 15 years and this kind of um use cases these were actually marginal use cases of of very early game of of crypto adoption so there are how many people like less than half billion people actually using crypto in their daily life and that they actually using crypto and we are here like on this conference we're speaking about so many advanced stuff uh and very technical stuff on how how we can help with scaling how we can prepare for scale because really scale is is yet to come because there is like uh like 95% more people to be actually introduced to to this concept of cryptocurrency and digital money money and there is long way in front of us in in Crypt Mass adoptions and uh and how we can adopt this this amazing technology we work on on the on the mass mass adoption my my in my opinion this will have happen they will not even notice it because blockchain will be something that they don't know they will not know about technical stuff behind it same as they use internet without know knowing what is TCP IP same like um there will be this just intuitive solutions that solve the problem so crypto you future crypto users will probably not even know that uh they're using crypto yeah and we I work with at comp equal is where we actually build this kind of tools and services to make U crypto useful for daily life purposes and uh so we have we help crypto projects to to work with this Fiat to crypto crypto to Fiat we build some kind of easy intuitive wallet solutions for newcommerce and no coiners and there are different kind of services to to boost the Crypt M adoption further uh that would be all from from me today uh we have another speaker if someone has question we can just no questions let's go further ah okay M MH um yeah this is this is concrete um question about um about the the the ites so as a pay payment provider sand box sand box yeah there are there are this um basically test sandbox we can we can enable you some kind of test test sandbox uh for for testing purposes that would not be a problem it seem like like putting you on on some test net but yes uh in order to to have a work with um with real real users you need to become compliant there strict regulations but Lithuania is very good Lithuanian Central Bank actually created some some very easy uh legally but also technically uh for for new Financial Ser services in order to test this kind of uh sandbox environment in order to test real uh Fiat Fiat payments and this is how we can actually if you are Incorporated in Lithuania then we we could actually do something yeah well thank you very much for this wonderful presentation and wonderful overview uh and now we will move forward to our next presentation a