Bitcoin or Bust: From Here to Eternity Speaker: Zennon Kapron, founder of Kapronasia and author of “Chomping at the Bitcoin: The History and Future of Bitcoin in China” (Penguin).
(Date is second Friday of April due attendance of Brothers at the Shanghai Savages at the HK Sevens.)
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are minting millionaires and billionaires on an almost daily basis. Should ordinary people invest or is it another Ponzi scheme and bubble waiting to burst? Here to offer his insights is Zennon Kapron, who has been researching, writing and talking about the impact of virtual currencies from the very beginning. Zennon will talk about the latest developments in bitcoin, blockchain and initial coin offerings and what to expect for the future. He’ll also look how these new technologies and business models may re-define the financial industry as we know it today.
Since inception, Bitcoin has returned 13,000%. A fund from Pantera Capital, a cryptocurrency focused investment firm, returned 24,000% since inception in 2013. In 2017, an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) called Bancor raised over US$150M on the basis of 40 lines of code, US$3.5M per line. Finally, we have something that returns more that Shanghai real-estate. But will it last?
About the speaker: Zennon is the founder and Director of Kapronasia, one of Asia’s leading providers of research and consulting services focusing on the financial industry and financial technology. Zennon has been published in numerous publications including the WSJ, the NYT, the Economist and Bloomberg. He is a regular participant in industry events both in Asia and globally and has testified in front of the Congress on issues of China fintech. Before Kapronasia, Zennon worked for Intel in Shanghai and was the CIO for Citigroup Portugal. He holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science from Syracuse University and an MBA from INSEAD.