I’ve just sent out a message to all of the members of the Scottish Bitcoin Meetup. In case anyone is reading this blog that isn’t signed up (why not? it’s free! and you get to hear what’s happening in the scene as it evolves in Scotland), here’s the text in full.
Hi folks,
Hope you’re all having a great Sunday.
Where It All Started
When I started the Scottish Bitcoin Meetup back, I did so for one simple reason: I’d been convinced for a long time that we were witnessing the start of a paradigm shift across technology, business and wider society. The exact form that this disruption would take was unclear but it was beyond doubt in my mind that ‘something’ was coming. Try as I might, I couldn’t find another forum in Scotland for people to get together in person and discuss what was coming. So I thought, sod it, let’s just do it myself.
Thankfully, some of you turned up to that first meetup! And many of you have continued to do so ever since. Since those early days, we’ve managed to gather in one way or another for 29 meetups to date, with two particular highlights being the first ever Scottish Bitcoin Conference taking place in August 2014 and Design In Action’s residential Creative Currencies Chiasma earlier this year where a mix of people got together to learn together and dream big about the possibilities.
Today’s Landscape
In recent times, the main Edinburgh meetup has evolved in format, to include video calls with great stalwarts of the scene from around the world. In last couple of months, for example, we’ve chatted with Coin Center, Paul and Michael from the Wall Street Journal and Victoria from ChangeTip (check out the livestream video here if you haven’t seen it yet).
All of this is going to continue. Please do try to make it along if you’re still interested as there’s some great guests lined up over the coming months (and for those of you who keep asking – yes, I’ll do my best get Andreas at some stage…!)
However, it’s become clear to me over the past six months or so that we’re seeing an evolution in the general conversation. The heady days of speculative easy money that attracted a certain type of interest in the early days are gone, replaced by a period of intense work and consolidation across the industry. In part, this is driven by the evolution of connected and parallel technologies (such as Ethereum, MaidSafe, Eris etc) but it’s also being driven by the unavoidable fact that larger financial institutions are starting to take the technology more seriously (UBS open lab; New York Stock Exchange invest in Coinbase,Fidor and Ripple, Barclays, Goldman Sachs invest in Circle etc).
I’m increasingly being invited to give talks or get into conversations with ‘serious’ institutions – in common with many who follow the scene. Regardless of the narrative in the press or the details of the specific technology, there is definitely something happening that validates the feeling that most of us have held for a long time now.
So – why the rambling email?
The Future
On Tuesday 19th May at 6:30pm, there is going to be a get together in Edinburgh to which you are all invited. But this isn’t going to be a typical Bitcoin meetup. This is a group for people who want to get together in a room and roll up their sleeves. People who want to code, build projects and businesses related to blockchain tech and – put simply – stop the talking and start the doing.
To be clear, we won’t be focused exclusively on projects that relate solely to financial services. For the most part, we’re going to be technology- and sector-agnostic. We’re simply going to be focused on solving real problems. But at this stage, the plan is to sit around a table and lay the foundations of a group that will evolve over the next few months for those who consider themselves serious (either in terms of existing talents or intention to get involved) about the future of the sector in Scotland.
One important point: this gathering is in no way exclusive. So please pass this invite on as you see fit. Nor is it for ‘experts’ (whatever that term could possibly mean at this stage in any event). The only pre-requisite for attending is a willingness to roll up your sleeves and get involved moving forwards. Ideas are ten-a-penny. This group is all about whittling down some of the best and starting to execute on them. So it doesn’t matter whether you’ve just fallen down the rabbit hole recently or whether it happened years ago.
Without disclosing too much, we’ve got buy-in externally from some big names across the Bitcoin/2.0 scene. And I’m as convinced as I’ve ever been that we’ve already got the talent in Scotland.
If you’re interested, please get in touch. Whilst I’m currently co-ordinating this on behalf of what will, I hope, turn out to be a sizeable number of people, I don’t intend to lead it or dictate the direction in any way. But don’t take my word for it – all will be revealed at the first meeting!
If this chimes with you and you happen to be in Edinburgh next week, please do get in touch. As ever, the more the merrier.