Seats are filling up for the two 50-person Cryptonexus workshops before the 10th annual LendIt USA event in NYC later this month.
The team built the workshops to help financial services execs struggling to learn about cryptocurrency and web3. Join LendIt and partner BanklessDAO for two one-day interactive crypto workshops.
Described as a one-stop-shop, you can learn everything a fintech expert needs to know about crypto in just one day with hands-on trading experience.
Sessions will run all day on May 23 and 24: A separate ticket from the general conference is required for the workshop. Attendees can also get a bundle ticket that includes Cryptonexus courses and the USA event while supplies last.
Class is in session: why learn about web3 and crypto?
Bo Burstkern, one of the Cryptonexus workshop leaders and LendIt CEO, said that in 2022, Web3 has emerged to become an essential trend across nearly every industry. While music, art, and games may be the most immediately impacted, the financial services industry is about to experience an enormous change. According to Brustkern, Web3 may evolve in two very different ways: to become a separate, parallel, and better transaction system; or to become an integrated feature-rich layer within our current banking infrastructure.
Time will tell which becomes the most likely path for web3 technologies, but he said one thing is for sure: things are going to change around here.
“Anyone interested in innovation in financial services must have a working knowledge of crypto and Web3 to make any sense of what’s coming,” Brustkern said. “It’s our job to teach our community this crucial understanding so they can work confidently in this fast-changing world.”
Cryptonexus, why now?
The lithic-minded may not have noticed, but advances in blockchain have created opportunities, challenges, and threats to modern banking and consumers. Financial executives have to understand that the power of blockchain, crypto tools, and web3 will create a new financial future.
In the past year, crypto has become one of the top trending topics on the LendIt site and the financial world news. The trends reach further than standard financial news; the crypto market overall reached a peak of $2.9 trillion in November, with industry-leading names stretching across football stadiums and advertising spots in the mouths of celebrity sports stars.
Many of the largest US banks, securities firms, and custodians showcase their skills in crypto custody and compliance after years of ignoring the asset class.
In April alone, Fidelity and Blackrock showed their faith in investing in stable coins as a payments rail, and Goldman Sachs loaned millions to Coinbase backed by bitcoin: Brustkern said the question is not Is now the right time for me to learn crypto?; the question is When will I be too late?
“The train has already left the station,” Brustkern said. “Now is the time to get up to speed so we can still catch it.”
Unfortunately, even for the most experienced underwriter and payments provider or sophisticated financial services executives, the language and technology barriers that crypto and Web3 introduce are daunting.
A rough overview of the agenda
The day-long course will cover everything from the fundamentals of blockchain technology to Layer 2 protocols and on-chain governance and the future of hierarchical organizations.
Workshop tickets include $300 in digital currency to be distributed to virtual wallets that attendees will create as part of their journey. Here’s a look at the lesson plan:
- Blockchain basics: the language of the blockchain, definitions of the common words, and what they mean
- Layer 1 protocols, the building blocks of crypto like bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, and how they use consensus to finalize transactions on their networks
- Why Ethereum is known as programmable money
- The leading Defi protocols and what they solve
- How to transact on the blockchain: an introduction to wallets, security, and scalability
- How to create, manage, and keep a non-custodial crypto wallet safe
- Must have tools for crypto natives and how to use them
- Blockchain superpowers: the magic of NFTs, layer three applications like OpenSea, BAYC, and POAP.
- How to manage security, taxes, and reporting
- Intro to governance, coordination, and DAOs, featuring the expertise of BanklessDAO members
Test Run
On May 10th, while the crypto market suffered capitulation from an enormous bull run, the LendIt team met in what else but an old bank vault at a coworking site in midtown manhattan to launch a dry run of the Cryptonexus event.
Around the table and joining remote from the world over with fintech, crypto enthusiasts, and ecosystem members at all spectrums of the crypto knowledge base.
As jokes were had over the struggling networks under strained service, more than three members saw misreported amounts of ETH in their brand new MetaMask accounts. The old bank vault held millionaires again, if only for brief moments through browser extension errors. Despite the mistakes, Ehterscan proved that the truth held in the blockchain was secure.
If that made no sense, it is worth taking a Cryptonexus workshop.
The team learned to forgive the new tech, but the excitement was unmistakable. By day’s end, even the handful of complete crypto vestals was using the lingo and transacting right alongside experts.
‘Future of finance’
“Our mission with these one-day workshops is to introduce our core community of fintech entrepreneurs and bank executives to Web3, safely and confidently,” CEO Bo Brustkern said. “We’ve designed this course, in collaboration with BanklessDAO, to provide everything the traditional financial executive needs to understand, explore and work in the future of finance.”
Attendees can expect to learn what they need to bridge the gap. Industry leaders Jacob Benson from Coffee & Crypto, Eric Hill, Manuel Maccou and Senad Dilji from BanklessDAO, and Ella Dane from DAOpunks, will lead fundamental lessons and guide hands-on demos with real cryptocurrencies, DeFi applications, and more.
The workshop mirrors the recent announcement of Merge London, a new conference focusing on the collision between Web3, fintech, and traditional finance.
Web3 technologies are compelling and will impact every aspect of commerce in the future. No one is immune to this change. No one can be future-proofed against Web3.
Financial executives will benefit by taking this course to comprehend, plan for, participate in, and take advantage of the dramatic changes we are only now beginning to see on the horizon.
