We've arrived in Madrid! Our European networking/Zcash/Latam route reaches its last event... for now?
The truth is that we have arrived in the capital of Spain to keep abreast of the latest technological trends of the moment.
And what does this event (which is not even about Blockchain technology) have to do with Zcash?
Everything!
From Zcash, its global community, the ECC, the ZF and the ZCG, we cannot be oblivious to everything that happens in the world. Zcash (nor its members) can isolate themselves only in that “privacy is normal”, and that “ZKproof is great”. There are also things going on in the world that Zcash cannot be divorced from, such as: trends in ecommerce, the major storage and hosting providers, the technology being used in marketing to sell more, and what's new in cybersecurity developments.
All of this is being discussed at the Madrid Tech Show, and while it is true that it is not a cypherpunk, hacker-style event focused on privacy and anonymity, these are very important and current topics that those of us who make a living in Zcash should know, manage and understand.
This event is happening in an impressive location, the IFEMA in Madrid, a spectacular place where the biggest and most important exhibitions in Spain take place.
How to enjoy the Madrid Tech Show.
This is an event that has more than 350 speakers, more than 400 stands and exhibiting brands, and an average attendance of more than 20000 visitors, so it is an event that you have to plan to enjoy completely.
What was Aura's and my strategy? As there are 2 days, we decided to dedicate the 1st day to visit the stands, contacts and networking, and the 2nd day to participate in the conferences.
So today (Day 1) we did just that: we visited stands, brand by brand, and received many times their recommendations for hiring services.
An interesting fact: in the whole event there is only one exhibitor, one brand, that is dedicated to blockchain development. They are the people from Armadillo Amarillo, who told us that they are programmers and develop blockchain solutions. Interesting! And they even told us that in Spain they are still far from accepting, understanding and using cryptocurrencies. That is to say, that now is that there is an opportunity to make educational, informative and awareness proposals.
The rest of the stands offer their IT services of storage, cloud, transmission, security, and sales, well advanced and updated to the latest trends, but completely oblivious to what is blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
I asked many of these providers how they charged for their fees, and if they used cryptocurrencies. 99% of the answers were NO. (The ones that do accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment are, obviously, the ones from Armadillo Amarillo).
But it's not all bad: I must say that at least there was curiosity. Every time we were asked, “And what do you guys do?”, and we talked about Zcash, Bitcoin, Wallets and exchanges, there was a lot of curiosity, and I don't know if out of mere courtesy or genuine interest, but many people would tell us, “I need to learn about that, that's complicated and not everyone teaches it well”.
So I see a great ocean of opportunities, at least in Spain, to create initiatives that point towards: financial privacy, value safeguarding and circular economy.
I remain quite optimistic, not only about everything we have been able to see in these events in Europe, but with everything we can teach people here about Zcash and privacy.
Here you can see a summary we did of Day 1, from Zcast.
Here are some of the photos from the day:
