Paris Blockchain Week Recap and Reflection

Joeri 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. My name is Jury Bilast and I'm your podcast host, and today is a special episode. Actually, it's a solo episode. I have been, or actually today is the last day of Paris Blockchain Week. I had arrived on Monday, monday afternoon, and, yeah, it was a really nice weather in Paris, so this gave me the time to get settled, to walk, get some fresh air and walk around in the park, the Tuileries Actually it was a nice afternoon so I could get settled and prepare for the evening event, which was the Circle Soiree organized by Circle Nice cocktail reception, networking event with some music, and I had the chance to meet a few people from the three duos community but also meet new people. And one of the highlights of that evening was that I connected with Jeremy, who is the CEO of Circle, and I hope to have him as a guest on this podcast also. And then another interesting conversation was with Marco, a Dutch guy, and he's living in Portugal, not far from the place where I will be relocating to in the summer. So that was the first night, but the first official day of Paris Blockchain Week was on Tuesday. They started with a fireside chat with Richard Tang, the CEO of Binance. One of his quotes that I remembered and I also put it on Twitter was that day he said that Binance has earned the trust of their users by their consistency of their actions in the past years.

Joeri 2:06

I went to a few other panels. As you know, for me, web3 is an umbrella term for blockchain, for AR, vr, metaverse, for AI and other new technologies, and so I'm especially interested when those technologies converge, and so one of the sessions that I went to, and so the next session that I went to, was blockchain as a protection for AI. So blockchain can make sure that the information that AI is using in its model is actually verified and is true, can be trusted. The next session I went to was how AI is transforming Web3. As I said, those technologies are really converging. Then, around noon, there was a session about digital identities in the Web3 landscape. So the definition of digital identity. You can see it as a wallet address that is your identity, and then your profile picture, if you want, or your NFT picture, for instance, could be the representation of this digital identity. It was a really interesting discussion. Also, sébastien Bourget was there, who was an earlier guest on the podcast. He is the CEO and co-founder of the Sandbox Metaverse and the last session I went to was a fireside chat with Brad Garninghouse, the CEO of Ripple Groninghaus, the CEO of Ripple Now that Ripple maybe you heard the news is planning a stable coin. What will happen with an XRP was one of the questions. The answer was not really clear to me yet. I have some XRP in my wallet, so I will close watch closely what is happening there.

Joeri 4:07

What makes paris blockchain week also very interesting is all those side events. First side event I went to was the sunset on the santa with bitstamp, bitco Thales, and I was invited there because the CEO of BitGo, yeah, was interested to be a guest on my podcast and so we connected there and we will plan the podcast, probably on an event, and the plan is that I meet him when ECC comes to Brussels To be continued. The next side event on the planning was the NextGen Blockchain Summit, with four panels, and Nicole Rednick was one of the panelists. She was also a panelist when I moderated the panel at NBX in Berlin, so that concluded the first real day of Paris Blockchain Week. On the second day, I listened to the keynote by Tim Draper, who is the founder and the managing partner at Draper Associates Also DFJ and Draper Venture Network. He's a really know guy in the crypto space, in the Web3 space. Then I went to another stage around unlocking value, exploring the potential of tokenization in investment strategies. There I had a meeting planned with sonia because she will be one of my next podcast guests. Sonia xiao is the president of coin w, which is a cryptocurrency exchange, and then from 11 till there was again an event on the sand, which was a really great event organized by my friend Reem, and all the people that were present were either investors or founders. So I think that was maybe the highlight, or certainly one of the highlights next to the Circle event of Paris Blockchain Week. So many people I've met. There will probably be guests coming from that event on my podcast soon.

Joeri 6:28

I always like to meet people in real life before they come on the show. It's not always possible, but here was really a good occasion to meet them and, as some of my people in my network may well find interesting, I also connected with some investors. Then I went back to the main event and listened to a panel discussion about crypto exchanges. So it was with a key player in the open finance ecosystem, if you can call it like that, with a few people from Coinbase, binance, cointelegraph Cointelegraph as a moderator OpenPaid and OKEx. I love to hear all the different viewpoints for all the different players in the space. It's interesting how they are competition but still were on the same panel and shared interesting insights.

Joeri 7:24

Then again an event in the evening the Algorand event, a night in Parasite Algorand, where again there was a possibility to make some good connections. As you may know, I love networking. And then there was day three, thursday, which is actually now when I'm recording this podcast episode. So the first session on the day I went to was the one about creative renaissance empowering innovators in the Web3 sphere. I don't know so many Belgians in Web3, but I know Stefan Collins who was in a panel and he is working for Vanley. He is a chief marketing and strategy officer at Vanley and so I was there to to support him and, of course, to listen to what he had to say. And after that I went to another panel with another good contact of mine, gigi Casimiro. I interviewed her or I had her on my podcast at the Web Summit Not the last summit, but the Web Summit before because she was at that moment doing the Metaverse Fashion Week. Now she's doing different stuff. It still was really interesting to hear her story, what happened in her life, and, of course, also listening to what she had to say on the panel, which was about how brands are taking over Reptree spaces.

Joeri 8:52

Then again another panel decentralized finance, redefining traditional financial systems through decentralization. Defy is a hot topic. You can never learn or know enough about a certain subject. Even if my focus is marketing, maybe you know that I had an investment club for many years, so the financial aspect of web3 is, of course, also something that is fascinating me. Yesterday I went to the session with the crypto exchanges. Today I went to the fireside chat with Pascal Gauthier, who is the CEO of Ledger. If you don't know, ledger, that's a tech company that specializes in developing secure consumer devices for storing and managing cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Myself, I am also a fan of Ledger.

Joeri 9:47

There was another session I followed, the part of which was the keynote about storytelling in Web3. And this session was done by Christina Lucricre, recorder, who is working for coin telegraph. It's always useful to hear how other content creators are doing it. In between all those sessions, I met Nicole, but I also met other people from the Web3Doors. We made some pictures together, though I hope you like about these conferences that you meet people in real life with whom you are connected online, or the other way around, that you meet new people on conferences and that you connect online and you meet them later again. The last session of the conference, or the last session I went to, was Meet the Drapers. This was the most interesting session because it was with Tim Draper and then two other people he's collaborating closely with, and they were inviting on stage four founders who had a chance to be selected and to get $1 million in funding.

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Joeri 11:01

And then, to be honest, I was quite tired after all those days with a lot of content, a lot of networking, some cocktail parties, some really interesting conversations. So there were so many inputs for me to take action on that. I skipped the closing party today just to take some time for me to reflect on the past days. Just to take some time for me to reflect on the past days and to keep my energy, because I need to follow up with everyone I met, and tomorrow I will take the train back to Belgium. But I feel more motivated than ever for Web3. Because when I saw the atmosphere that is back With the ball run, all the possibilities that are there, you cannot miss out.

Joeri 11:51

It now is a time to take action. If you want to know more about Web3, about the possibilities, about how you could elevate your business with Web3, or, if you have a Web3 business, how you could elevate it with a good marketing plan, reach out to me, send me a message and I'll be happy, yeah, to have a conversation with you. Take care and, yeah, I hope to see you back for the next podcast episode. Bye.