What Crypto Means to People — Startup Thailand 2018
By: Jason Cho
Tags: Roger Ver, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Thailand, Blockchain

Roger Ver — “Just a regular guy”

Roger Ver’s full presentation at Startup Thailand

Before his presentation, we had a chance to sit down with Roger Ver and spend some time with him. Whatever you may think of Mr. Ver from past public appearances and interviews, It was a refreshing experience to talk with him one on one and just hear about his past and what he hopes to accomplish. Gone was the vitriol that many people associate with him. What was present was a man who was quite dedicated to his craft and was very open and attentive to people’s questions. He still had that sharp wit that responds back to a variety of responses and criticisms, but he just seemed extremely calm yet firm on his position, which has to be commended.

“I’m just a regular guy that really believes in this and wants to share it.”

With that being said, He was still first and foremost a Bitcoin Cash evangelist, but his approach did not have that same level of urgent attack that some may see in his previous interviews. Granted, most likely he was not talking to an audience that had the same level of blockchain expertise or knowledge as the people at Deconomy or Consensus; but it was this type of Roger Ver that many people do not remember or do not see very much.

“I hope there will be better [cryptocurrencies] that come out tomorrow, because if a better one comes out tomorrow we all get to use that one too, just like I hope that a better iPhone comes out tomorrow, because I’ll get to use that one as well.”

During his presentation, you could hear the standard affair of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) promotion and its comparisons to Bitcoin Core (BTC), but when presented with such positivity, it’s easy to understand why Mr. Ver can attract such a massive following. He also touched upon the recent BCH hard fork which increased the block size from 8MB to 32MB and how that type of scalability can continue with Moore’s law (a position that he has used before). A Google search about Roger Ver and scaling will probably lead you to his most recent debate with Samson Mow of Blockstream. If you watch that, it is clear that both have very strong but polarizing philosophies about scaling.

Roger Ver during his presentation

History has shown us how much a strong leader can accomplish, and Mr. Ver has definitely been doing this for such a long time that he understands the crowd and how they react to him. One of his most iconic acts is giving people free cryptocurrency (originally BTC, but now BCH) just so that they can try it out for themselves. It is an extremely simple yet still effective marketing tool for spreading adoption of cryptocurrency.

In terms of the future of blockchain technology and how to properly scale it, Mr. Ver has one theory, and many people follow him; as well as many people who are with the other camp, and each side has daggers for eyes pointed at each other. Regardless of who wins, Mr. Ver is following up on his words, for better or for worse.

Charles Yu — A Glimpse into Crypto’s Future in Korea

Charles Yu’s full presentation at Startup Thailand

A little bit later after Mr. Ver’s presentation, our colleague Charles Yu from BCK gave a presentation about our center and what the current state of cryptocurrency is in South Korea.

Concerning our center, Mr. Yu said it quite simply but eloquently:

“We’re for the community; we like to incubate, and provide more education about [cryptocurrency].”

Expanding on that, he went into more detail about how we achieve this through our varied events and also through the growing crypto community in Korea that work together and try to develop the industry more maturely.

Another topic that Mr. Yu focused on were the interesting facts about the trading volume (specifically for altcoins) in South Korea, and the possible causes of such high volume.

Next, he narrowed his focus on specifically Korean ICOs (ICON, BOScoin, MediBloc). As well as introducing South Korea’s first hard fork: Micro Bitcoin.