Ordinarily people would need no reason to visit a picturesque island retreat for a gathering of like minds, partying, and socialization over drinks—add in a group of Bitcoin luminaries and you’ve got the Block Chain Summit of 2015.

The summit took place on Richard Branson’s private island from May 25 to May 28 and featured a number of luminaries from Bitcoin and other industries across the world. Those present included the already mentioned Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury, Bill Tai, venture capitalist and angel investor, Susi Mai, co-founder of Mai Tai Gobal. Other recognizable names include Jeff Garzik, Bitcoin core developer, Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO of BitPesa, Tina Hui, CEO and Founder of Follow the Coin, and many more listed on the Block Chain Summit website.

Although many of the tweets off Necker Island included people sipping Mai Tai’s and having a good time, several highlights came out of the whole affair including a Bitcoin mining light bulb via BitFury and a Skype call involving TV star Lucy Liu.

BitFury’s Bitcoin mining lightbulb

As the leading sponsor of the Block Chain Summit, BitFury Group took advantage of the presence of so much interest by presenting an upcoming product: a light bulb that mines bitcoins. BitFury representatives showed off the light bulb at the summit and Reddit picked up pictures of the product.

Bitfury developed a light bulb that automatically mines Bitcoin when you screw it in. #sideproject #blockchainsummit pic.twitter.com/8liCtOwlKV

— Marc van der Chijs (@chijs) May 27, 2015

“We believe that the project’s focus should not be on making money from bitcoin mining, but on creating innovative solutions with main purpose to use this product for educational purposes and fun,” said BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov. The concept is the brainchild of BitFury board member Bill Tai and Head of Product Development Niko Punin. Apparently the light bulbs have been under development for more than a year and already a couple dozen bulbs exist. Technical details are expected to be released later this year.

The jump. Lucy Liu’s project. Launch of Bitcoin Mining light bulbs. Hernando de Soto’s economic theory in Blockchain. 48 hours of #MaiTai. — Bill Tai (KiteVC) (@KiteVC) June 2, 2015

BitFury also mentioned that it plans an open-source release of software and technical specifications to encourage 3rd party developers to take advantage of the product.

Looking at 21 Inc.’s plans to include Bitcoin mining apparatus within dozens of different types of Internet-connected appliances on an Internet of Things scale, BitFury’s bid for light bulbs might come just in time to provide at least luminous competition.

Lucy Liu speaks on blockchain identity management technology

The participants joining the Block Chain Summit were granted a celebrity visit (via telepresence) by movie and TV show star Lucy Liu—currently known for her role as Joan Watson, partner to Sherlock Holmes, on ABC’s crime drama Elementary.

Liu joined a Skype panel discussion about Bitcoin blockchain technology and, according to tweets from the island, her angle involved using the blockchain for identity management.

Lucy Liu closes out #BlockChainSummit by talking about why we need identity and how the Block Chain can help. pic.twitter.com/SoqABUSBX2

— Paul Brody (@pbrody) May 28, 2015

Already a lot of work is being done to outfit the Bitcoin blockchain as a technology for tracking assets and securing them. Recent examples include Nasdaq.com’s foray for using the blockchain for securities management and Factom using the blockchain to establish and manage land ownership records for the government of Honduras.

Identity management mechanisms have already been proposed for the Bitcoin blockchain such as Christopher Ellis’ Blockchain ID project, as reported by Cryptocoins News. Janina Lowisz, a.k.a. “Blockchain Girl,” became one of the first people to have her identity mapped by a BlockchainID and Vice.com interviewed her on the subject.

The Bitcoin network spends a great deal of hashpower making bitcoins valuable, but at the same time the blockchain generates a sort of auditable ledger that can prove the provenance of transactions. Many of the above-listed projects use that auditable nature of the blockchain ledger and cryptographic entanglement to provide proof-of-publication for other assets. Securities, land ownership, and identity can all benefit from a cryptographically-secured audible trail.

Social media from Necker Island

While the entire Summit was broadcast via Periscope, a livestreaming app launched by Twitter Inc., it has no archives. However, according to Bill Tai, videographers will be releasing the footage soon and when that happens there will be a lot to digest. The rest of the news as it stands from Necker Island came via social media, Twitter (as seen above), Facebook, and Instagram.

The #blockchain is the Earth’s first free trade zone – @virgingalactic @blockchainsum #bitcoin #fintech #finance #innovation #trade #economy #impact A photo posted by Tina Hui (@tinahui) on May 29, 2015 at 12:23pm PDT

And another example of how the Bitcoin blockchain can be used for ownership title management. Displayed is a printed example of a title management blockchain being shown off at the Block Chain Summit. This thought is continued in this video on Forbes during an interview with Brian Singer, partner with William Blair, talking about the blockchain advocacy of Hernando de Soto (@ReadingSignals), Peruvian Economist and President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy.

Title chain from Peru. This is a problem the #blockchain can solve. @ILDthinktank @ReadingSignals @BlockChainSum pic.twitter.com/tQiVgKN2tk

— GIDI Report (@GIDIReport) May 26, 2015

All of this reflects back on to Lucy Liu’s advocacy for blockchain identity management. As a global system, accessible to anyone who can reach the Internet, blockchain-secured assets open up a service that is difficult to forge but easy to audit. Advocates argue that while the trade of bitcoins fuels the power behind the blockchain, the technology’s other facets have yet to be fully explored.

Finally, just because there’s a tropical island involved. Let’s leave off with this tweet and video about kiteboarding. Enjoy!

THIS is unreal. https://t.co/poYRQqsnub “@lag: @amandaterry @SusiKite @KiteVC @richardbranson unreal” — Bill Tai (KiteVC) (@KiteVC) June 2, 2015

Image credit: President Hernando de Soto, MaiTai Global’s Bill Tai & BitFury’s George Kikvadze at the @BlockChainSum via @ILDthinktank.