SFBW19: Where Past Meets Future

SFBW19: Where Past Meets Future

THE SAN FRANCISCO BLOCKCHAIN WEEK

SFB19 is where startups, enterprise companies, academics, developers, and investors from around the world come together to define the future of blockchain tech and cryptocurrencies.

7 Days, 4 Main Events, 5000+ Attendees, 250+ Speakers, 100+ Companies, and more…

SFBW18: Change the Narrative

SFBW18: Change the Narrative

By Steven Chen, Jonathan Allen and Kevin Huynh

The San Francisco Blockchain Week

There have been more major blockchain conferences than days in 2018. The surge in crypto prices over the past two years has sparked the interest of many due to the perceived opportunity for quick financial gains. Unfortunately, conferences became platforms for expedient networking and “get rich quick opportunities” in the crypto industry. This perceived financial benefit allowed conferences to charge exorbitant amounts of money simply for “access” to networking opportunities while providing little in the way of actual content to educate general consumers, investors, and developers…

How to Get Hired by Top Blockchain Companies

How to Get Hired by Top Blockchain Companies

By Steven Chen

Blockchain development has taken the leading position at hiring the most talented programmers in recent times. Based on Upwork’s reports, from the end of 2017 through the beginning of 2018, blockchain engineering was second amongst the most demanded skills in labor markets. Based on the estimates of ComputerWorld, blockchain developers in cities like New York, Boston and Silicon Valley earn on average $158k a year. This is more than 10% higher than the average pay of software developers. The number of opening positions have also grown by 115% from 2016 to 2017…

Announcing: The Blockchain Career Fair 2018

Announcing: The Blockchain Career Fair 2018

By Steven Chen

Blockchain needs talent, not money.

2017 was a huge year for the blockchain industry in terms of mainstream interest for cryptocurrencies, which resulted in significant capital flow into virtually all tokens that appreciated in value through the wild speculation. We incredulously witnessed the insatiable demand for ICOs, some of which became so overwhelmingly popular that teams were able to raise dozens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars with little more than a flashy website and a peerless-unreviewed white paper. While many investors played along with the masses, regardless of the whether they believed such speculative behavior was beneficial to cryptocurrencies, some others did vehemently profess that such craze was a positive indicator for the industry. And thus, a half-trillion dollar industry arose uninhibited…

Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin’s Scalability Debate

Beginner’s Guide to Bitcoin’s Scalability Debate

By Kevin Huynh and Steven Chen

Bitcoin, a pioneering cryptocurrency invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, was a first-of-its-kind technological advancement. Today, at over $50B valuation, it remains the dominant cryptocurrency, proving time and time again its resilience to government regulation, bans, and hackers. More importantly, bitcoin has made “distributed ledger technology ”a new field of research and development. What bitcoin has brought to the hearts and minds of successive visionaries and entrepreneurs is electrifying. What was once a single organism now flourishes within a rapidly growing crypto ecosystem.

As the vision and adoption of decentralized assets grow, however, bitcoin struggles to keep its technological lead: scalability is a formidable growing pain…

Bitcoin Forks: Ulterior Motives?

Bitcoin Forks: Ulterior Motives?

By Steven Chen

Amidst this crypto bloodbath, I have seen some strong sided opinions regarding Segwit2x, UASF, Bitcoin ABC, BIP141 and many others. I can tell there is a lot of confusion going on as well as misconceptions.

This article attempts to explain the key events that will be keeping the overall Bitcoin community abuzz over the next few months. I break this up to two parts; the first part describes What is happening and the second part aims to explain Why it is happening. If you already know that basics of the What, I suggest you to skip to second part, where I go into the game theory and incentives of the parties involved. The content does NOT take an investment stance as the article solely aims to provide clarity for you to make your own decisions…