Bitcoin is catching the attention of traditional suit-and-tie financiers, at least enough for them to attend a $US695-a-head conference about it.
Digital Currencies 2014, an event bringing together bankers, lawyers, cyptocurrency experts, and regulation officials, is happening on July 29 in New York City “to shed light on how the industry could be transformed and what state banks should take in it,” a promotion advertisement site for the conference says.
For the (some would say exorbitant) price of $US695, financiers interested in expanding into cryptocurrency can attend the one-day conference to learn about the industry, including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies/payment protocols like Ripple, Ethereum, and Mastercoin.
Scheduled to speak are Lester Joseph (financial crimes intelligence manager at Wells Fargo), Chris Larsen (cofounder and CEO of Ripple Labs), Tim Byun (chief compliance officer at BitPay), along with a slew of other experts and executives from around the digital currency and traditional finance industries.
Oh, and the price goes up July 11, though the website did not specify by how much their “best rate” would increase.
“For financial services, an industry predicated on trust in third parties, the long-term implications of Bitcoin’s underlying decentralized technology are staggering,” a description on the promotion site says. “Cut through the noise surrounding Bitcoin and you might see a potentially transformative underlying technology.”
The conference is sponsored and organized by American Banker, a daily financial services newspaper. If you’re in NYC with a significant amount of throwaway cash and don’t feel like doing your own research about information that’s freely available online, register for the conference here.