China, Mining, Chainlink: Day 2 at Consensus 2021

What you need to know today at Consensus 2021 and beyond

May 25, 2021

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Welcome to Day 2 at Consensus!

This week is Consensus, CoinDesk’s biggest event of the year, featuring panels, workshops, keynote speakers, fireside chats, networking and more, all exploring the evolution of digital finance and blockchain technology. The Node will bring the best of Consensus to your inbox in special morning and evening editions from May 24-27. You can register for Consensus here.

If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.

Questions? Feedback? We'd love to hear from you! Simply reply to this email.

–Cameron Hood, newsletter editor

Today's must-attends

Your Guide

The second day of Consensus will be as jam-packed as the first – with just as many newsworthy events sure to come. The two biggest trends today will be bitcoin’s significant energy consumption and China’s hot-and-cold relationship with crypto and blockchain.

See the full schedule here.

8:00 – 8:30 a.m. NFT All-Stars
This panel will look at the long-term value of NFTs and whether the recent craze for digital collectibles could last. CoinDesk’s Adam B. Levine will be joined by super-collectors MetaKovan (the buyer of the $69 million Beeple NFT) and Whale Shark (who holds over 225,000 NFTs), as well as Christie’s Noah Davis and Time Magazine’s Keith Grossman.

8:35 – 8:45 a.m. Laws of Motion: How China's Bitcoin Mining Industry Impacts the World
Poolin Vice President Alejandro del Torre will discuss how changing environmental and political situations in China could affect the rest of the world – in terms of bitcoin mining.

10:20 – 10:35 a.m. China's "National Blockchain": An Inside Look at the BSN
Yifan He of Red Date, one of the Blockchain Services Network’s (BSN) founding companies, will discuss how this “blockchain of blockchains” plays into China’s ambition to become a regional financial powerhouse.

12:00 – 12:20 p.m. Prepping Your Practice for Crypto with Hester Peirce
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce (aka "Crypto Mom") joins Tyrone Ross to highlight the best practices financial advisors need to know when building bitcoin and digital assets into their practice.

3:00 – 4:00 p.m. Money Reimagined - ESG Edition, Part 2
Some of the industry’s heaviest hitters – the World Economic Forum’s Sheila Warren, CoinShares’ Meltem Demirors and Energy Web’s Jesse Morris, among others – will discuss the ongoing efforts to reduce crypto’s energy-intensive footprint and even use crypto in the battle against climate change.

8:00 – 9:00 p.m. Chainlink
Chainlink is getting more than a facelift with its version 2. Chainlink's Sergey Nazarov discusses the ways in which oracle networks will soon expand beyond data delivery and into the world of computation.

–Daniel Kuhn

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This Week at #Consensus2021

The quixotic dream of crypto has always been personal financial freedom without reliance on traditional intermediaries. Today, more than ever, these technologies are offering individuals a self-sovereign financial future.

This week at Consensus by CoinDesk, our virtual big-tent conference, we examine the trails being blazed and the people leading the charge.

Join our Explorations track "Dimension C: Life in the Parallel Financial System," sponsored by eToro, with Brooklyn Nets point guard Spencer Dinwiddie, eToro CEO Yoni Assia, Venrock's David Pakman and more at Consensus by CoinDesk, running to May 27. Register today.

Deep dives on the day

Of Note

CoinDesk reporter Nathan DiCamillo shares the big themes and ideas he'll be tracking today.

Scrambling to Find

The second day of Consensus by CoinDesk will offer insight into the Asia crypto markets at a time when China is intensifying its crackdown on crypto.

Last week, China’s financial regulators released a pointed message to banks and payment processors warning them to not do business with cryptocurrency firms. In the same week, cryptocurrency exchange Huobi told CoinDesk that it has scaled back or suspended some of its services and products in certain countries and has stopped its miner hosting services in mainland China.

Chinese bitcoin miners are now scrambling to find overseas sites that will host their mining machines.

In exploration segments, cryptocurrency and economics experts will discuss the geopolitical impacts of the digital yuan, how China’s bitcoin mining industry impacts the world and the state of blockchain standards in China.

Later exploration segments will look at the U.S. market, as the world watches to see if the new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler brings a more crypto-friendly atmosphere to the financial watchdog.

So far, Gensler has signaled that the regulator is ready to take enforcement action against bad actors in the space and called on Congress to bring regulations to crypto exchanges.

Several exchange-traded fund (ETF) experts will also speak about recent bitcoin ETF listings in Canada and what that means for the U.S. market. While the SEC continues to make a decision on bitcoin ETF applications, crypto executives will also take a look at crypto exposure through publicly traded crypto stocks like Coinbase, mining companies and other crypto service providers.

In the evening, CoinDesk’s Sandali Handagama will explore the state of crypto in Brazil in an hourlong session sponsored by Wachsman. Later, Compass Mining Editorial Director Will Foxley will speak with several crypto and blockchain pioneers from Colorado and Wyoming, giving insight into the state-level rules that are shaping crypto’s place in the U.S.’s Rocky Mountain region.

–Nathan DiCamillo, reporter

Putting the news in perspective

Top Shelf

FOR FOLK'S SAKE: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Managing Partner Scott Kupor told a U.S. House panel on Monday that the SEC’s crypto-related rule-making is anything but clear and potentially locking out “ordinary folks” from participating in token networks.

VC-BACKED: Chia Network, a programmable money platform created by BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen, has raised $61 million in Series D funding. The round, led by venture giants Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Richmond Global Ventures, values the “eco-friendly” blockchain network at about $500 million.

STABLE WORLD: A division chief for the International Monetary Fund said Monday at Consensus that the world would be more stable with more than one reserve currency. “This is a theoretical argument that underpins the greater stability of the world with multiple reserve currencies. So I think from an international perspective, that there’ll be more than one is a welcomed proposition,” the IMF’s Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli said.

–D.K.

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