There I am, outside the iconic Helsinki Central Station, about to head off to the blockchain conference in the Microsoft Flux center. The center is a strange place – it’s a weird castle-like building a short walk from the railway station through town, where anyone interested in technology and forming a start-up can go to use computer equipment, have coffee, and work in peace. A free office if you like.

There were interesting presentations, some slick and to the point, some a bit rambling, and some having no clear connection to blockchain at all. It did help me clarify a few things about blockchains though: you have to ask yourself “why do I want to use a blockchain in my solution?”.

The following are, in my opinion, possible valid answers:

  • I need a permanent unalterable record that something happened at a given time (and possibly a given place)
  • I have devices participating on a peer-to-peer network with no central server that need to share information or changes of state (such as a change of location)
  • I need participants in a network that don’t implicitly trust each other to reach a consensus

The following is probably not:

  • Blockchains are hot!

The main thing for me was to learn something, and although I didn’t learn anything new or technical about blockchains, I learned a lot about what other startup companies are doing, and more importantly, how they can communicate their message clearly and quickly. Which means it was a valuable event for me to attend.

Many thanks to CoinTelegraph for organizing it!