Consensus 2024 was my first time in the United States. The experience has given me a lot to think about. It’s also given me some pretty nasty gastroenteritis (hence the delay getting this post out).
Working in crypto and payments, this first visit to the US left me with a lot to comment on. I’ll try to stay pretty much on-topic, at least after the following disclaimer:
I’m Pro-American Dream
Before I get accused of being anti-American due to some upcoming comments in this series of blog posts, I want to make it clear that I am very much onboard with the general concept of what the United States could/should be. A land of opportunity, where honest hard-working people can rise through the ranks regardless of race, religion or creed to create a better future for themselves and their families sounds like a fantastic idea to me.
Sadly, though, what I’ve seen of the US through movies, television, the news, the internet and now in-person, doesn’t quite live up to those ideals. Quite frankly, modern-day USA strikes me as being painfully close to the Europe the Mayflower fled from in terms of social structure.
Interestingly, the ideals of the decentralized cryptocurrency movement tie in rather nicely to the basic concept of the American dream and the way crypto regulation is being bounced around by the powers-that-be reflects rather neatly how the North American elites have been using the general public to maintain a status quo that benefits the few rather than the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.
Is Austin a Crypto-friendly Oasis?
The crypto community spends an inordinate amount of time and energy reporting, commenting and reflecting on the actions of Gary Gensler’s SEC Gang. Every detail of the various high-profile SEC cases is deconstructed and analyzed in real time. Every Wells Notice sends (if you’ll excuse the pun) ripples across social media.
Yet, when I arrived at Consensus, I was not only met with the sight of enormous signs plastered with blockchain logos, but also a dogecoin-wrapped supercar, people wearing politically-themed memecoin T-shirts, people in fancy dress encouraging other visitors to “Buy X, Y or Z Token”; a veritable free-for-all, right there in plain sight.
From what is being portrayed to the rest of the world, one would almost imagine these people would be rounded up and thrown into an armoured SEC van and carted away never to be seen again. But yet, there they were and seemingly relaxed and care-free.
I thought it might be the case that Austin is especially pro-crypto, but conversations with local people quickly dispelled this idea.
More than Austin being a crypto-friendly oasis, I take it as another sign of the uneasy tension that shrouds “the land of the free”. That rebellious, defiant spirit of the settlers never completely went away, despite so many years of insular capitalist and nationalist propaganda. The propaganda struck me as INTENSE during my visit, by the way; “America is number 1, now buy this!”
Inside the convention center, overall the feeling was more business-like. Several people commented that this was the most “grown up” Consensus yet. There was a definite overall feeling that most people were there to do business, rather than pump and dump charts.
However, the juxtaposition between the desire to get innovative ideas moving and the unarguably unclear regulatory situation in the event’s host country was ever-present.
Phrases such as “except in the US, of course” (often also referencing Canada), followed by rolled eyes and awkwardness were ever-present in 1-to-1 conversations, but also in keynote speeches and “town hall” style talks.
ETF / FIT21 Buzz and the Political Crypto Bandwagon
Despite the overall exasperation caused by the tardiness of sensible frameworks being drawn up in collaboration with the blockchain industry, Consensus 2024 was floating on a bubble of hope caused by the approval of ETH ETFs and news regarding the FIT21 bill.
Then, since my return to Spain, the narrative has shifted even more towards “pro-cryptoness” being used as a political tool in the presidential election.
While I’m always disgusted by politicians’ willingness to use anything at all to gain votes despite their previous behavior towards any given subject, it certainly is telling that crypto-friendliness is a big enough topic that US presidential candidates consider it worth masquerading about.
This brings me back to what I mentioned earlier; the fact that crypto and the American Dream tie into each other so beautifully. The idea of people transacting with one another without the need for middlemen and without the elites controlling and dictating everything people do resonates so deeply with the roots of the United States that I have now come to believe that mainstream adoption there is inevitable.
Mainstream media is running out of tenuous ways to convince citizens that crypto is little more than a hotbed of criminal activity, and pro-crypto rhetoric during this election campaign could be the turning point. Once a high enough percentage of the population realizes that blockchain is a liberating technology, all that is left is for proper education of the general public to begin, for genuinely user-friendly products (such as Zypto’s) to gain traction and the regulators will have no choice but to let common sense and public preference prevail.
USA Payments REALLY Need an Update!
I’ve been working in a space between crypto and the payments industry for years now. Everyone on both sides comments on how far behind most of the world the USA is in terms of payments.
I found it hard to believe at first, but seriously… what’s going on, guys?!
I’m still shocked by the fact that waiters regularly take people’s cards away from them before returning with a little hand-written maths test. The tipping part is shocking in of itself, but why on Earth is everyone OK with their card being taken away from them? It’s literally the first rule of anti-fraud security; don’t lose sight of your card!
In JFK airport on the way back, the staff were walking to people’s tables with a tablet and manually filling in their card numbers (requiring the physical card to be present) on a form that looked like an early 2000s e-commerce check-out in order to process payments. You know, from when online payments were about as secure as sending a photo of your card to someone over MySpace. I asked them why they had such an odd system and they told me that they’d got fed up of non-Americans complaining about them taking their cards away, so this is what they’d come up with.
It’s not just in-person payments either. Did you know that one bank account in the US has different numbers depending on what kind of transfer you’re doing to it? It’s so weird!
Part of the issue seems to be infrastructure. I don’t know why, but either payment companies don’t want to invest in providing new payment terminals to their customers or companies themselves aren’t keen on changing their processes. The other part is clearly that US citizens are so used to what they have that they just don’t realize how clunky and old-fashioned it is.
Whatever the reason, Zypto Pay would be AMAZING for this. With the v2 Soft POS (coming soon), a simple tablet or smartphone will be all any kind of company needs for crypto payments and potentially also card payments, especially with the newer bidirectional NFC chips. Scan QR or tap to pay, anywhere.
Could the US skip a stage and go straight to mass adoption of crypto payments even before getting fully up-to-date with card payments?!
In part 2 of “My Consensus”, I’ll dive into who was at Consensus 2024, how they’re relevant for Zypto and some general comments on what I believe we can expect in the coming months and years based on what I saw/heard. Don’t let my slightly cynical tone in this post fool you; I’m very excited for the future!
