1) Bobby Lee: CEO of BTC China (now the largest bitcoin exchange in the world), Bobby gave a presentation on Bitcoin in China, perhaps the most important panel of the entire conference. He clarified what last week's Chinese government announcement meant for the future of Bitcoin as both a regulated investment and payment system in China. As an investment, it has been given the green light for now, which is important. But as a payment system, it is banned outright, which is very bad news...mostly for China.
2) Charlie Lee: All you need to know about Charlie, a Coinbase executive and creator of LiteCoin, is that he is the understated, non-anonymous founder of the leading alternative currency to Bitcoin. Which naturally meant that people were literally lining up to take pictures with him. Though he was taken by surprise, he smiled for every single one. Upon seeing this, I asked him to sign my chest, but unfortunately he thought I was kidding. He and his brother are as nice and humble as people say they are. I was disappointed that there wasn't a panel on "alt-currencies" with him and the founders of some of the other cryptos.
1a, 2a) "BitDad" (Bobby & Charlie's father): The Lees brought their father to Vegas, where he was affectionately referred to as BitDad for producing two of the industries most important pioneers.
3) Patrick Murck: Head of the Bitcoin Foundation, the industry's leading advocacy group, Murck just testified before the Senate re Bitcoin's potential. All week, I pitched the idea of insuring Bitcoin deposits to other attendees and received overwhelmingly positive reception. But when Murck told me "this needs to happen," I had to double back to my room to change my boxers.
4) David Johnston & Michael Terpin: These two are co-founders of BitAngels, the industry's leading Bitcoin investor network. That alone makes them important. But they are more than just Bitcoin enthusiasts, and BitAngels is about more than just money. Johnston and Terpin have built an entrepreneurial network that turns ideas into companies by syncing likeminded, specialized teammates with the appropriate engineering, finance, and/or legal complements to form a solid founding team.
5) Robert Cho: Today, if you are an investor that wants to own Bitcoin, but prefer to avoid direct investment in digital currency (like many less tech-savvy investors), the only game in town is SecondMarket's Bitcoin Investment Trust, which already raised over $65 million from accredited investors. Cho is the VP responsible for the trust, and has blazed the path for other Wall Streeters to follow in SecondMarket's footsteps. In fact, one major US hedge fund plans to announce a Bitcoin position in the next several weeks. (A long position, of course.)
6) Paige Freeman: My conversation with Paige was short and sweet, but she definitely deserves mention because of how quickly her team at BitPay is on-boarding new merchants. (She's VP of Sales.) They now have over 15,000 merchants on their platform and recently announced that they passed the $100mm transaction processing milestone. Bitcoin investments rely on underlying value in the payment system and $100mm is a big number. It shows people are doing more than mere speculating.
7) Vinny Lingham: I wish I had had more time to speak with Vinny. As the merchant complement to BitPay, his company Gyft, a mobile gift card company, is extremely valuable to the Bitcoin community. Very few major merchants accept Bitcoin today, but you can buy Gyft cards with Bitcoin. And those can be spent at retailers like Amazon, Target, Nike, etc. Ergo...
8) Brock Pierce: I am surprised that some enterprising attendee didn't go out and have "Brock Pierce 2016" t-shirts printed after his panel to wrap up Day 1 of the conference. Two of his best quotes, which were border-line shouted into the microphone because he was so excited:
"Professional investors that invest in the currency as if it is an index fund have a moral obligation to invest in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Otherwise, the infrastructure won't get built."
"Bitcoin will be the biggest area of VC investment in 2014. Just like VCs asked: "What is our social media strategy?" during the early Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter years, I guarantee you they asked: "What is our Bitcoin strategy?" at partner meetings after Jim Breyer's investment in Circle."
Also, in case Brock's name sounds familiar, it's because you may remember him as the kid who played a young Emilio Estevez in the Mighty Duck movies.
9) Andreas Antonopoulos: The probable VP on Brock's Bitcoin Presidential ticket. He's too "fire-and-brimstone" to be at the top, but holy shit could he fire up the Bitcoin base. Andreas is a writer, speaker and Bitcoin entrepreneur. He was asked to respond to bankers and politicians who questioned whether Bitcoin was "legitimate" and delivered an exasperated soliloquy on the audacity of our "morally bankrupt, corrupt and illegitimate banks and governments" passing such judgment on Bitcoin. I think the crowd nearly gave him a standing ovation when he wrapped up. Follow him on twitter to spice up your feed. @aantonop
10) Stewart Quealy: Media Bistro did a phenomenal job with the conference, and much of the credit goes to Stewart, the primary organizer and emcee for the entire conference. Great guy, and you should look forward to meeting him at future events.