A highlight hidden in plain sight...
It would have been tough to live up to the expectations set before Consensus 2018. Crypto fans everywhere were hoping it would be the balcony from which the crypto world would declare its arrival to the masses.
Judging from the lukewarm response to Consensus, it appears many were disappointed. Of course, there were the bigger names rolling out the next step in road maps and announcements about regulation or the lack thereof, but there was a highlight hidden in plain sight that showed an actual implementation of technology: Civic. The blockchain tech demonstrated the concept of "zero-knowledge age verification" - the beer vending machine only needs to know that the purchaser is 21 years old and uses the Civic blockchain to verify this from any Civic ID participant.
It was a pretty simplistic idea - but it's proof of real functionality that requires no third party (other than the beer distributor) and could be automatically transacted.
So while the main talk of Consensus seemed to focus on institutional adoption, regulation, and investment, it was the little-vending-machine-that-could that proved some of these ideas might actually work in the future.
Of course, this is just the beginning for Civic. Identity verification and protection is a huge industry, well-suited to blockchain adoption. The concept is transferable to so many unique identity-requiring situations and is relatively close to implementation in many scenarios, far ahead of most other blockchain products in terms of practical usage.
So while the response to Consensus has been somewhat anti-climactic, rest assured, the technology continues to grow - perhaps more slowly than we want - and will eventually spread to the masses.
*This is not professional trading advice - it's just my opinion!
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image source:
https://www.psfk.com/2018/05/civic-blockchain-beer-vending-machine.html