As the curtains drew to a close on the week-long event that saw the exchange of ideas and eye-opening discussions on the challenges and opportunities presented by the blockchain industry, Paris Blockchain Week left attendees with a deeper appreciation of the potential of blockchain technology and its pivotal role in shaping the future. Join us as we take a look at the highlights of PBW 2023 from the vantage point of Casper!
The fourth Paris Blockchain Week, which took place from March 21st to 25th, 2023, was held at the Carrousel du Louvre in the heart of Paris. The event boasted an impressive lineup of over 400 speakers from top players in the blockchain industry. The 2023 PBW marked a significant milestone in the growing interest in blockchain technology with an attendance of over 10,000 participants, a notable difference from the previous year's modest turnout of 3,000.
Casper- a proud sponsor of PBW 2023, took the stage through the speeches of Casper Labs Co-Founder & CTO Medha Parlikar and Casper Association Board Member Ralf Kubli.
Let’s dive in!
Medha Parlikar- CTO and Co-Founder of Casper Labs gave an insightful keynote speech on how to onboard the next 1 million blockchain users. Here is a quick recap of her speech:
“We believe that the enterprise will lead the way in blockchain adoption, just like Cloud technology and the internet, enterprises are going to lead the way for adoption. So, we knew we needed to service the enterprise first and foremost.
According to a survey by Deloitte, 93% of CTOs and CIOs are looking at blockchain technology, and 75% of those believe that they will lose a competitive advantage if they fail to adopt it.
However, the reason for the lack of broad adoption of blockchain is due to the scalability trilemma, which requires balancing security, decentralization, and scalability. We believe that scalability should be looked at in terms of scaling the adoption of blockchain within the enterprise itself, and not just in terms of transactions per second (TPS).
We spent two and a half years building the Casper blockchain starting with the virtual machine and a deep understanding of what it takes to build for the enterprise. Now we're focused on getting solutions on top of that blockchain, live and deployed.
The road to enterprise adoption starts with some core capabilities in the blockchain protocol itself. It has to support features that support SOX compliance, ISO, and other systems. Additionally, the blockchain needs to interoperate with existing cloud providers and development operations tooling. Finally, real-world use cases like IPwe, which is tokenizing patents using the public Casper network, are essential for enterprise adoption.”
Ralf Kubli joined a panel with representatives from MyDid, MultiversX, Web3 Foundation, and RR Donnelley. Ralf exchanged ideas on what is next in the blockchain industry, property rights, and digitization of assets. Here is a recap of Ralf’s answers to the moderator questions.
"First and foremost, we need to remind ourselves why we are in this space. We are building the infrastructure for the future of economic exchange, which will enable completely new business models and new ways of exchanging economic value. This will have a profound impact on how businesses operate and how creators monetize their work. Ultimately, this new model will transform the way capital markets function and could even impact the democratic legitimization of governments. So, what's next for the infrastructure in the blockchain space? We need to focus on building a secure, reliable, and scalable infrastructure that can support these new business models and economic activities."
“What we see on the enterprise side is a growing interest to use blockchain technology to unlock the unique ability of digitizing assets. In the case of Casper, it is IPwe, which is using our blockchain to secure and digitize the intellectual property of enterprises, at the present. In the future, anyone can use this environment to protect their inventions.
As we move onto ‘digital only’, it becomes easier to enforce your economic rights over an asset, without the need for owning the asset physically. This is what makes blockchain technology so exciting because we can cryptographically secure something that is otherwise copyable. The potential impact of this technology is enormous because digitization will make it much easier to enforce property rights, regardless of borders and regulatory differences."
“Enterprises are clearly interested in digitized assets that can be used as collateral or transacted in some way, but any project can benefit from them. The challenge is building an infrastructure that is secure, flexible, and can integrate with existing application environments. In addition, privacy concerns are always a consideration. In the Casper ecosystem, we have several use cases that address these concerns, such as IP rights, and we will soon share details about our renewable fuel tracking use case. These use cases illustrate the potential for blockchain technology to solve real-world problems and enable new business models.”
The Paris Blockchain Week awards were presented on the final day of the event, recognizing notable achievements and contributions to the blockchain industry.
IPwe - a smart intangible asset management platform leveraging Casper blockchain, was named the #1 Enterprise Blockchain Project of the Year, an award that recognizes the best overall enterprise blockchain project in terms of both technology and value creation. The award was accepted by Medha Parlikar on behalf of IPwe and Casper Labs
Casper Labs developed a chain of custody (CoC) solution for public patent records using NFTs on the Casper public blockchain. By creating and securely storing patents as NFTs, they become easily traceable and can be traded. This enables immediate proof of ownership, simplifying patent transactions and reducing costs. Furthermore, this sets the stage for a consortium of patent owners, offices, and verifiers to manage, publish, own, and transfer patents.
IPwe recently announced the deployment of 25 million patents as NFTs on the Casper blockchain, which marks the largest deployment on any blockchain ever.
Congratulations to IPwe on winning the #1 Enterprise Blockchain Project of the Year award and for their groundbreaking work!
PBW 2023 was a true showcase of innovation and ingenuity in the blockchain industry, leaving attendees feeling inspired and motivated to push the boundaries of what's possible. Prior to the start of the Paris Blockchain Week, Casper sponsored an intimate VIP dinner at L’hotel Bachaumont.
The dinner was a chance for industry leaders and innovators to connect and network and left many feeling energized and ready for a week of productive conversations and collaborations. Featuring special guest Gary Benezat, the dinner provided a perfect kickoff to the exciting week ahead.
