RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – It would be very easy to blame a nerd for scheduling a tech event about blockchain on the opening day of March Madness, but the sold out crowd did not seem to mind missing the NC State game or others. I saw more attendees wearing light blue and some Michigan gear. The closest thing to a basketball sighting was the local startup Peeq’s blue foam Q-Ball being passed around as the microphone for audience members.

Using locally developed Peeq to pass around microphone at RTP 180.

RTP 180 is a monthly event held at the RTP Frontier building and is sponsored by RTI International, the original tenant of Research Triangle Park. This month’s event was about the revolutionary technology known as blockchain.

Blockchain is a complicated technology infrastructure platform that allows cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to operate to move money in transactions and should have mature remittance services like Western Union and MoneyGram looking like Toys R Us, an industry that has been disrupted by innovation and more efficiencies. The technology behind blockchain is self regulated much like how experts describe open source software.

Think about it this way from one of the presenters, Drago Bratic.

If an immigrant is sending their income back to their family in Europe, every $500 sent by Western Union would cost $42 in American dollars. But with a service like BitPesa, that $500 would cost $15 in American dollars. While the $27 difference may not seem like much to an American, if you do the exchange rate those $27 American dollars can mean several additional meals in other countries.

The four presenters had very little time – five minutes each – to discuss their expertise in this growing specialty. They seemed to be deep into the technologies, from the local IBM blockchain program leader to a duo of local entrepreneurs who host a local annual cryptocurrency conference.

The four speakers included:

Dr. Sandra Johnson talks transferring money technology.

According to her LinkedIn bio, Johnson has experienced the challenge of needing her money to be more “mobile.” A former IBM technology leader and Chief Technology Officer (for Central, East and West Africa), she has a passion for technology in Africa. She has lived in Nairobi, Kenya and spent three years traveling throughout Africa, visiting 22 countries on the continent. She is knowledgeable about mobile money, having used it while living on the continent and understands the dynamics of this popular financial tool. She has now created her own startup called geeRemit.

Johnson gave some impressive statistics:

  1. 80% of all banks are currently involved in blockchain projects
  2. 2,500 blockchain related patents have been filed in the last three years
  3. $1.4 BILLION has been invested by venture capitalists into blockchain related startups

I would have to say the most thorough explanation during the presentations came from the IBM’s Dickinson. IBM is currently involved in over 400 blockchain projects.

According to Dickinson, there are four ways to think about the impact of blockchain:

  1. Blockchain was like using a permanent marker while using the internet as a way to have a record of transactions
  2. Blockchain leads to more reliable data
  3. Blockchain leads to better data visibility
  4. Blockchain is a new tool to build synergy among business partners

In a long list of ways blockchain would have an impact on industries, he focused on three areas that are of current concern voting, supply chain and food safety. Let’s discuss food safety example. In a recent test of the mango food safety supply chain, retailers using the old process could find the source of the mangoes in seven days. With the blockchain technology, the same process took less than three seconds.

As the first speakers at the event, Porper and Okcetin had to face the inevitable question about the possibility of the bitcoin bubble. North Carolina, specifically the technology sector of the Triangle region, really suffered from the dot com bust in 2000.

Porper and Okcetin are the founders of the annual Cryptocarolina conference which will be held again on June 15-16, 2018. There are also behind the FinestToken.com business. The FinestToken business is meant to disrupt the real estate industry.

They also touched another “third rail” topic of drugs. Can blockchain and bitcoin become the solution for the biggest problem in the legal cannabis industry? Banks won’t take cash from sales in the cannabis industry and this is a problem in Seattle, Denver and California.

At event’s end, it was clear why the attendees chose to learn more about emerging technologies over March Madness. They are changing our world.

Jim Roberts is the Community Development Director at Bunker Labs RDU, Founder of the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW) and the Manager of the Wilmington Angels for Local Entrepreneurs (WALE). Jim has been a connector and a resource for startups in North Carolina for the last 17 years. He also is a frequent contributor to WRAL TechWire. And a RABID Florida Gators alumnus.  Twitter – @redspireusnc

 NEW has an event in Wilmington on March 20th on the Three Stages of Sales: Prospecting, Relationship Building and Closing the Sale.