Blockchain Saturday: Official Report of The Lagos Beam Meet-up Featuring Matthew Starkey CEO Oracle-D and Many Others

What a way to end the year!

The just-concluded Blockchain Saturday meet-up that held on the 8th December 2018, is without a doubt the best of all 3 meet-ups we organized this year for several reasons. Part of the reasons being that the atmosphere was electrifying and it was the perfect environment to learn, network and build your contact and network of important people within the blockchain space. I have never been more proud to be at the helms of the team that could put something so special, especially in this bear market, that could once again make blockchain enthusiast smile and have hope in blockchain technology, despite the gloomy reality.

The Beam Business

Being Beam's Lagos Ambassador, I made a presentation on the importance of privacy in our day to day lives. Privacy equals to our liberty, if one's privacy is threatened or taken away, that person will not be the same.

Unfortunately, there are corporations whose business is in trading people's private data to the highest bidder. Companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, know where we are at every point in time, because our mobile devices have become little beacons that send our details to these corporations.

So, this makes privacy a very important conversation, and Beam is one of those projects that drive for the importance of financial privacy. My presentation was promptly followed by a Skype conversation with Conor O'Higgins, also a Beam Ambassador of Dublin, Ireland. He explained how Beam achieves complete privacy in the cryptographic makeup of its tokens.

He also explained the importance of privacy in the world we live in today, shortly after his 20 minutes presentation, questions followed immediately, with @stevenmososes who is very much interested in the Beam tokens. The questions kept coming, as the session of the event came to a close.

The major take away from both of our ambassadorial presentation is that the option exists should in case you are considering anonymity in the nature of your transaction on the blockchain. Something similar to what fiat banks offer, although they too, can have the government interfere in their affairs, and they are bound by law to comply in furnishing the government with whatever information the government demands from them.

Let's Talk about the Dip

Arguably, the most exciting part of the meet-up, here we have a panel session moderated by John Makinde (@jotmax), and the panellist include @oluwoleolaide and @stevenmosoes where the conversation centred about what to do now that bear market is here. December 2017, the crypto world experienced quite a lengthy prosperous period, which made everyone highly optimistic as the end of the year drew closer. Unfortunately, the reverse is the case this year, so we had two session experts in the blockchain space come to talk about the bear market, and what to do to survive this bear market as it looks to be taking too long for the bull to arrive.

They both offer solutions to how to survive, solutions like, get something doing off the blockchain, get alternative sources of income. They also spoke about blockchain project with real-life applications that are monetized. The highly interactive session saw an endless stream of questions from the audience, concerning different aspects of the blockchain. And the panellist did a great job in answering the question with relative ease.

Introducing Quidax!

We had guests from Quidax.com, led by Mr Calvin Ebun-Amu, a Business Analyst at Quidax.com who pitched the value proposition Quidax offers that gives the platform an advantage over its competitors. Quidax is a crypto-to-fiat exchange, designed for the African market, and its simple, secure and seamless interface promises to make users crypto trading experience - delightful! The highly spirited pitch was followed by the distribution of freebies to participants present at the meet-up.

LAGBEAM promo code was given, and when entered on one's Quidax account, gives the user Naira 2000 worth of cash, with which one can either buy cryptocurrency tokens or simply withdraw, given that you have successfully completed the KYC procedure.

Time for the ORACLE! With Matthew Starkerz

What has been regular back and forth discord conversation, towards the build-up to the meet-up, morphed into email exchanges, then finally Skype messages, which eventually became a Skype video call with Matthew Starkey, the CEO of Oracle-D. The Englishman whose accent easily gives him away, in the person of @starkerz was digitally present at the meet-up where he gave a presentation about @oracle-d and it's a unique business model.

The basic model Oracle-D runs is the multiple-proof-of-brain (MPoB) system that rewards content creators who create quality content for the platform's client and partners.

They are encouraged their partners, clients and investors to purchase and hold of Steem, in exchange for massive social media and content marketing for the users brand. This is a way of making the Steem blockchain increase in value. @oracle-d also has a model where both the investor and @Oracle-d work together, and shared the proceeds from this joint endeavour.

@Oracle-D gave unique freebies to participants without a steem account to be able to instantly create an account. They are in need of partners and clients who need marketing and awareness for their projects, businesses.

What is Enumivo?

The last presentation was by Destiny Marshall an Enumivo leader who passionately spoke about the project and its numerous incentives that users can benefit from. There are several ways interested people can benefit from Enumivo, and they mostly entail participating in one form of community activity or the other, as the project believes in the Universal Basic Income, UBI. With social justice at the core of its operations, Enumivo is trying to use blockchain technology as a vehicle to deliver social justice to everyone. Talk about a noble cause!

The Enumivo project boasts of a vibrant community on their official website and Marshall gave a graphical representation of the community behind as he gave out free t-shirts to participants who engaged with him.

Special Mentions

It was a pleasure seeing each and every one of the participants in good spirit despite the gloomy reality of the bear market. As it is truly was an exciting meet-up filled with people who wanted to learn and share ideas at the same time. I will like to mention some important people who truly made this event a reality. First of all, my partner, and co-convener, @jotmax planning, executing and getting things done isn't easy. A special gratitude goes to Engr @samest for his contribution towards the meet-up, we deeply appreciate you, Engineer!

@oluwoleolaide and @stevenmosoes for sharing their vast crypto knowledge during the panel session, Jesse Ighor, @florae, @bookoons and @marshalllife for playing vital roles in making the event possible. Then there is @emakasegun, @barineka @tezzmax @ubongj @daniel-otaniel @gracehills @udezee and everyone else!

Next Meet-up

The next Blockchain Saturday meet-up will hold sometime in January, watch this space for more information!