Founders' Journey - Episode 123
Greetings from DEConference Week
This week it was all about the Digital Economy Council of Australia (DECA) Deconference up on the Gold Coast where Arturo Rodriguez and I headed, which brought together an eclectic mix of innovators, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders spanning blockchain, AI, and digital assets. Over three days, insightful discussions unraveled the future of technology, finance, and creativity, with a focus on meaningful innovation and practical applications.
Here’s a snapshot of the highlights:
Day 1: Industry Evolution and Foundational Talks
Global Alignment & Australia’s Role in Digital Assets: Leaders from Coinbase, Gemini, and Kraken emphasized Australia's unique position as a hub for innovation, while highlighting the importance of legal certainty and grassroots support for adoption.
Product Evolution of Digital Asset Platforms: Discussions on the convergence of centralized and decentralized exchanges showcased the potential for omni-systems and the need for more robust infrastructure to attract institutional players.
Law of Code: Experts unveiled a resource aimed at simplifying legal navigation for builders and lawyers, bridging gaps between tech and law through case studies and practical frameworks.
Agentic Applications: Early explorations into AI agents illustrated their transformative potential—from automating workflows and enhancing medical diagnostics to reimagining retail experiences with augmented reality.
Day 2: Regulatory Insights and Creative Disruption
Austrac and AML/CTF Sunrise: Evan Gallagher outlined upcoming crypto regulations, including FATF-aligned standards like travel rules and mandatory KYC for exchanges and custodial wallets, urging businesses to prepare for March 2024.
Film.fun: In stealth mode, this project is creating a new paradigm for media production with tokenization, enabling voting, rewards, and novel ownership structures—setting the stage for a major launch later this year.
QreativeAI: Reinventing QR codes with Gen Z in mind, blending creativity and functionality to transform how people share experiences and interact with the digital world.
Day 3: AI Meets Web3
Immutable Ratings: Matthew Bevan and Emilio Barbieri introduced an on-chain rating system for transparent and permanent trust metrics, addressing bot-driven engagement issues on platforms like X.
AI Innovators: From Chirper’s AI-driven debate testing to EasyAI’s process automation framework, founders showcased how boring but useful AI can drive efficiency across industries. It was great to present Sike.ai and our focus on secure knowledge management and human-in-the-loop workflows, leveraging blockchain for privacy and accountability (I'll share a video on that soon)
Project Acacia by DFCRC: A deep dive into digital money use cases revealed opportunities for wholesale CBDCs and tokenized assets, with collaboration across startups, banks, and regulators shaping the future of programmable finance.
Key Takeaways for Founders
The conference underscored the value of "boring but useful" innovations, those that streamline processes, enhance security, and build trust, while laying the groundwork for the more exciting applications that follow. Whether exploring AI agents, tokenized ownership structures, or regulatory compliance, the message was clear: focus on solving real problems first, and the fun stuff will come.
As founders, the challenge is to ask: How much time are we spending on non-core tasks? The answer lies in documenting, automating, and iterating, one process at a time.
Some posts and recaps
Day 2 opening breakfast https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7340512370370166786-EjpY?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAV7RT0Bf0fJj7zr6JDyM7Fh2-KhNgJf4dk
Digital Finance CRC on stage https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7340530596005277699-6i9r?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAV7RT0Bf0fJj7zr6JDyM7Fh2-KhNgJf4dk
Final day https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7341021589360033792/
Look Out for Exclusive Video Interviews
I'll also be sharing some behind-the-scenes content from the conference! Stay tuned for exclusive video interviews with speakers and innovators who are shaping the future of AI, blockchain, and digital assets. Keep an eye on your inbox for updates.
To close, don’t miss Vincent Gramoli's talk on cutting-edge blockchain technology with Redbelly Network alongside Kunal Limaye of Google . Watch it here
It’s a must-see for anyone interested in scalable, secure, and efficient blockchain solutions!
See you next week!
Mark