Key Highlights from the CV Summit Leadership Circles Day 2

CV Summit Leadership Circles 2021, Europe’s ultimate conference for blockchain leaders, came in strong with their second day ‘CV Culture & Impact Leaders Circle’.

Hosted by CV VC and CV Labs, who are amid the founding fathers of the Crypto Valley ecosystem, this year’s influential 3 day CV Summit is themed “Leadership” and explores how leadership energy and action are accelerating the global megatrend that is blockchain across three core areas: Digital Assets & Investors, Culture and Enterprise.

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NFTs will certainly give Crypto wings!

Dr. Karl Kobelt, Mayor of the City of Zug welcomed delegates to CV Summit Day 2, which explored the impact of blockchain in creating new business models across culture, art, sport, and society. He said:

“It is exciting to see how strongly the crypto scene has shaped and changed our city in recent years. A crypto bank now in the former town hall, new co-working spaces, adverts for crypto products are now integral to the cityscapes. A globally networked generation find their way to Zug”.

The day began with Bernhard Blaha, CEO, Blocktrade SA who explained his view on how the mass adoption of digital assets affects their quality. Simply put: increased quantity will in turn result in increased quality. Racing into pole position on this issue was Daniel Ritchie, Senior Commercial Manager at Red Bull Racing who enthralled delegates with details of the NFTs that Red Bull Racing will develop, so as to offer engaging experiences to their 25 million worldwide fans.

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Jennifer Arman of Inacta then moderated a very fast-paced panel of global leaders on the subject of NFTs & Sports. Key discussion points included:

• For all sports verticals, fan engagement is the biggest challenge and NFTs offer an amazing solution
• Stakeholders including sports federations need to embrace the opportunity that blockchain and NFTs present
• Ease of access is holding people back, platforms need high UX — expect to see more adoption once UX is sorted
• The main challenge for issuers is to understand who owns what/IP rights
• Each sports area will likely evolve its own token economy
• The real value of blockchain technology and NFTs is the ability to transfer fan value back to the athlete directly
• In all sports, the fan wants to get closer to the athlete — blockchain provides this access — it’s really exciting
• Everyone concurred that NFTs have the potential to be what we have longed crypto to be: a venue that will create mass adoption

A bubble? Yes & No!– NFTs are here to stay. Every tech frontier is a bubble, and there is nothing wrong with a bubble — great things come from it

Other Challenges? Manage expectations of new entrants and regulatory questions such as: is an NFT a security or not?

The Future? The metaverse, cross-functionality of blockchain, and augmented reality offerings, such as in sport (gameplay) experiences

The Panel included Oliver Hughes, CMO, Red Bull Racing, Hubertus Thonhauser, Chairman at Tezos, Toli Makris, CEO, EX Sport, and Niclas Genovese, Tokengate.

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Next up — The Tech to support

Joe Petrowski, Technical Integrations Lead at Web3 Foundation introduced the audience to some hardcore tech — Multi-chain Web3 Apps. His presentation was a deep dive that demonstrated how hard the scientists work behind the scenes to ensure success. We got an exploration of how cross-chain applications will require new approaches to development and infrastructure. We learned that we need to reduce the bottlenecks of shared systems — some great light was shone on upcoming solutions, such as parachains.

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The human factor in blockchain as a global megatrend

Sam Katiela, CEO & Founder, MAMEMO Consulting delivered an inspirational and evocative speech which concluded with him asking the audience to act like a symphony of co-creators to come together and show the positive expectations and effect that blockchain has and will have in the future. He reinforced the point that blockchain is a positive megatrend — what we are doing is changing the world. He encouraged delegates to be aware that the world is watching and waiting but that the blockchain sector must reach out to pick up the rest of the world to come with us — & do so by creating positive stories about our blockchain world and create ambassadors to tell those stories.

Blockchain on the African Continent

Gideon Greaves, MD Africa CVVC inspired with his update on the determination and entrepreneurial spirit which he encounters across Africa. This was echoed by Gisela Roth, Program Manager, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) who expressed Africa’s positive interest in all things that are progressive and support enterprise. Whilst largely unbanked, the prevalence of smartphones is dramatic and the continent is hungry for efficient solutions. South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo, and Kenya were mentioned as evolving hotbeds of innovation and determination to embrace blockchain solutions for the continent’s challenges.

Rico Pang, Managing Partner, Sanctum Ventures spoke passionately about initiatives to encourage education, especially coding, for Africa’s tech-savvy youth population. Amid the challenges faced, the varying regulations of the many Governments were mentioned. Gideon Greaves, MD Africa CVVC added that having “Switzerland” aided trust-building with stakeholders — “what better partner to have”.

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Revolution in the world of art

Kenny Schachter, Artist/ Collector opened the afternoon session with a mind-blowing evangelical presentation on art NFTs. He stipulated that they will go way beyond money, as they have accelerated the art world by at least 20 years. Delegates loved his energy and his sometimes anarchistic notes such as “There’s something punk about creating a whole new monetary system in the artworld” and “I’m more interested in blowing up the bridges between traditional and digital art worlds”!!

Kenny then joined the panel Evolution of the Art Market in the Digital Age, moderated by Tanya König, Swizz Art Bizz who suggested that the panel theme ought to be about revolution. Panel members were: Dino Lewkowicz, Director, 4ART Technologies, Sarah Schlagenhauf, Founder & CEO ArtDeal AG, Roger Darin, Head Digital Finance, Inacta, and Jutta Nixdorf, Head of Swiss Department at CHRISTIE’s.

Key takeaways included:

• Art has always suffered from access, digitization is allowing access for all
• Art is part of the human condition and digital art is an expansion and expression of that
• The fact that 22 million people watched the Christie’s Beeple auction is testament to this
• Auction houses are more nimble than galleries in embracing the digital age and with that comes trust
• Disruption of the old art world is coming from outside the art world
• NFTs have both artistic and financial interests
• It is now a 24/7 market
• Storage: whilst much physical art sits storage, some even in ports, digital art can move anywhere with you, and with parallel tech advances NFTs can also be displayed in your home
• As with the traditional art sector, there was a view that natural selection will take place in digital art markets
• Art is part of the human condition and digital art is an expansion and expression of that

“NFT Art is an exciting journey, projects are amazing, we are just at the beginning” — Jutta/Christies

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Revolution in the music industry

Markku Mäkeläinen, Chief Executive Officer at Utopia Music gave us a peek at another Revolution — this one is taking place in the music industry.

Utopia is spearheading a revolution in the music industry by enabling fair music monetization and data transfer for all creators. “Fair pay for every play”. Markku propositioned that the Music industry, which is valued at circa $60bn, could be 3 times that if the industry could close the data gap. That’s one of the many things that blockchain can enable for the music industry: help close the data gap.

He was subsequently joined by enigmatic Sam Katiela, CEO & Founder, Mamemo. During their fireside chat, Markku told of his work to marry industry knowledge, data understanding, military-grade security, Swiss-clock-like precision, and sheer computing power in a way required to solve the data gap.

The data tsunami drowning the music industry and leaving creators and publishers without precise income flows can be solved using the power of blockchain. Resulting in efficient data flow and income distribution to both creators and publishers.

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Transforming Humanity and Economy with Social Tech

Themes of globalization and consciousness were evident in the evening session titled — Transforming Humanity and Economy with Social Tech.

Stefan Kanalga, Founder & CEO of yeswetrust moderated and was joined by Michael Gord, Co-Founder & CEO at GDA Capital, Simon Telian, Managing Director Advanced Blockchain AG, Jan Bruch, CEO Neumorgen, Alan Laubsch, CEO at Generation Blue, and Shirly Valge, COO, Velas Network.

Stefan's own project, known as “YesWeTrust”, symbolized all that the panel discussed. Using blockchain to be the enabler of change we wish to see in the world. Some of the very Zen-like takeaways included:

• Our time to create generational change is here
• Unify humanity
• Move toward conscious social media, where you earn a token when you give a like
• Instead of extracting value, use decentralization to receive value for sharing/liking
• Tech should be intuitive and humanity should lead tech
• We need to rise as a global community and begin radical sharing — pretty much bring what the blockchain community is doing — transparency, sharing and common good — to everyday worlds
• Go with the collective flow and whatever you do — do not say … “but, no”, instead SAY “Yes, And…”

Closing out the day

The day concluded with a true reflection on what saying ‘Yes’ can do as The impact of Bitcoin on El Salvador was discussed by Dunstan Teo, Co-Founder & President, SANCTUM and Carlos Fernandez, Finka.Swiss.

El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as parallel legal tender will cut the cost of remittances, an important source of income for millions of its people.

Bitcoin offers, in theory, a quick and cheap way to send money across borders without relying on traditional channels.

Laws are already enacted to ensure success and in effect possibly help to restabilize a collapsing economy. This may be an experiment but it is one to watch with an open mind for other countries.

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