Bitcoin 2013: The Future of Payments (Liveblog)

This weekend, Bitcoin enthusiasts from around the world will descend on San Jose, California for the Bitcoin 2013: The Future of Payments conference.

The conference will include panels on tech, economics, regulatory issues, and importantly, Bitcoin’s potential commercial applications. See here for the full schedule of events.

The keynote speakers for this year will be the Winklevoss twins of Facebook fame. Other speakers and panelists include a number of entrepreneurs and investors working on creating the infrastructure to bring Bitcoin into the mainstream.

The speakers list underscores something about the conference’s tone. The crowd in attendance doesn’t appear to be the "radical anarchist" (whatever that’s supposed to mean)  set that sometimes gets talked about when discussing Bitcoin.

Instead, the conference has a very professional air. Many of the Bitcoin-related startups have already secured venture capital funding as well as top talent. The Bitcoin exchange Tradehill has talent acquired from Google and one of the founders of Coinbase, Fred Ehrsam, has experience as a trader with Goldman Sachs.

All in all, it looks like it’ll be a great event, so check back often as I’ll be updating periodically as the conference goes on.

...

This liveblog of “Bitcoin 2013: The Future of Payments” is the fourth and final installment of my series exploring the political, economic, and social implications of Bitcoin.