Earlier this week, over 150 experts in cryptocurrency and decentralized ledger technology, otherwise known as blockchain technology, met in New York City’s Greenwich Village to confer about the future of blockchains.

Held at New York University’s Stern School of Business on April 4th and 5th, the COALA Blockchain Workshop NYC led to a number of experts speaking about their expectations for blockchain technology. COALA (Coalition of Automated Legal Applications) is a collaborative community of experts, lawyers, technologists and entrepreneurs who have been driving research, policy and infrastructure-building in the blockchain ecosystem over the past three years.

COALA has previously hosted Blockchain Workshops in Massachusetts at Harvard and MIT, in California at Stanford, and in London, Hong Kong and Sydney.

David Orban, Managing Director of Network Society Ventures, said, “Decentralization is hitting energy, manufacturing, food, health, learning, security, even governance and policy making itself; it’s not only finance.”

“When Bitcoin and blockchain are getting the finger pointed at them with people saying ‘it’s just a fad’–well, it’s not. It’s part of a deep, broad wave of huge changes, where the opportunity for enormous wealth creation is concrete and present now.”

Photograph courtesy of COALA

Interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency technology continues to expand

Not a week goes by without SiliconANGLE picking up a story about how a startup is raising funds to apply blockchain-based technology to some industry vertical. In March, developer and startup highlights from the Blockchain Conference SF included smart contracts and the Internet of Things, accountability in advertising and product authentication.

The above applications of blockchain technology from providing smart contracts between devices to delivering provenance for transactions or proof-of-existence and validation for documents, physical products, and so on represent only the tip of the iceberg. And as infrastructure and support for blockchain-based technology expands so do the needs of government regulation.

Vlad Zamfir, researcher at the Ethereum Project, has been attending COALA Blockchain Workshops since January 2015.  He said, “I think it’s important for people working in projects in this space to synchronize on different issues, not just around tech, but at the intersection of tech and society.”

Throughout 2015, blockchain technology began to make inroads into the financial services sector with fintech solutions such that it could be used to accelerate and securities trading. Sartups such as TØ.com (Overstock.com, Inc.) have shown that it’s possible to run a crypto-security and Japan-based Fujitsu Limited and Mizuho Bank, Ltd. recently completed a successful trial using the Open Assets Protocol to provide security and authenticity for securities trading.

Zamfir added: “COALA allows us to talk to the regulators, the policy makers, the investors and other developers so that we see our work in a broader context. It gives me a place where I can think about the impact of this technology on society.”

The application of blockchain technology continues to exist in a legal grey zone—as do many cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, evidenced easily by the poor reception of New York’s BitLicense—but at the same time it could prove to ease compliance and auditability for numerous industries.

Using workshops such as the one in NYC, COALA hopes to continue to bring together experts from across the entire spectrum of the ecosystem not just to invent and innovate ideas for blockchain-based technology but to provide a foundation for understanding how it intersects with society and law.

“With COALA, we try to create new opportunities for people from different backgrounds to network,” said COALA co-founder Primavera de Filippi, “to help them gain insights from people they might not work with everyday, and who could become potential colleagues in the future.”

Future workshops by COALA are planned internationally and more information on the activities is available on the organization’s website. For more information on the panelists, experts and agenda of the NYC Workshop see the Blockchain Workshops website.

Featured image credit: Pixabay.