Venture capitalist Karim Rahemtulla on cryptocurrency communities in Vancouver

0:00everybody is blockchain interviews in the Crypto Coin Show I'm your host Ashton Addison and on this episode we have Kareem Ram Tula the lead organizer of the crypto assets conference in Vancouver taking place on February 13th at Canada Place welcome to the show Kareem and thanks for being here no thanks for having me Ashton awesome man hey thanks so much

0:22for setting up a crypto blockchain conference in Vancouver I know there's like a lot of amazing conferences going on around the world that people are starting to hear about like the etherium conferences the New York conference and it's great to see an event in a place that I like to call hometown yeah it's fantastic we're excited for exactly the same reasons awesome

0:45so is it not just a blockchain conference and the name is crypto assets conference so is there a meaning behind this choice yeah so when wouldn't we were deciding on a name for the conference it's definitely a blockchain conference that has crypto acids in it but we were all wrapped up in the hype of crypto assets at the time with Bitcoin and cerium we're watching it

1:11hourly minute ly so we kind of decided to go with crypto assets but it's definitely a blockchain conference we're touching on a lot of things beyond just crypto assets themselves awesome so essentially what was your team's vision when you guys created this conference in Vancouver yeah absolutely so I actually work in venture capital so I'm I work in the tech scene here in

1:34Vancouver I'm a huge believer of the Vancouver texting and I've always been a big fan of trying to enable it I've come across a lot of different blockchain organizations here in the city and it was it's really really empowering to kind of see that grassroots startup so what I really wanted to do was sort of bring the global blockchain community

1:56here to Vancouver just so we can connect those two groups together that's awesome to hear I know personally I've been involved in the cryptocurrency industry in Vancouver since 2013 2014 and I've seen as the years go by we have a place down you might note that by D central or D control area it's grown exponentially over the years from nerds to businessmen

2:21to old people young people everyone who's just trying to become interested in this fascinating thing we call blockchain yeah absolutely I think that's one of the best things about blockchain technologies it's so new that it's pretty much open to anyone I myself have an economics background I remember doing a research paper on Bitcoin back in 2013 didn't think too

2:47much of it I was interested in at the time but now it's I'm glad to see the entire industry is kind of taking whole yeah it's super exciting so in terms of what we are going to expect at the crypto assets what if somebody was to go what do you think they what kind of topics would be we be learning about and how far or how deep are we gonna dive yeah so it's really gonna span the

3:14entire thing so we are we're a full blockchain conference we're definitely gonna have a designated portion of the conference for crypto assets a lot of asset managers how do you even value a crypto asset at this stage but we are gonna deep dive a little bit deeper into the regulations and sort of how one might go about regulating it in a in a decentralized way and how some of the

3:38central bodies are handling this regulation then we are going to talk about talk about some other things so I like I mentioned I'm from the venture capital world so there's been a lot of ICO hype in the last six months or so we're gonna talk about how I SEOs are actually affecting the venture world and if it's changing the way that startups can now fundraise beyond that we're also

4:00gonna look at some of the blockchain technology I think that for me that's the most fascinating part about the blockchain world is all the platforms that are starting to be built now cryptic crypto currencies are very interesting but I think some of the tools that are getting adopted in completely new industries is what fascinates me the most so we're going to

4:20talk about a lot of those different things we're gonna have a little bit of technology demos as well as well as a whole new new companies that I'm excited to unveil in the next couple of weeks or so that's awesome I know there's a lot of hype in Vancouver about IC o is right now I've seen more than a few actually do really really well and I do believe

4:44that it isn't a nice interesting flip on a fundraising platform to allow small businesses to be able to grow more exponentially and I believe that Vancouver and Canada are working in a sandbox with these icos and looking at these innovative ways to grow startups and they're prospering with that so that's great to hear

5:11so when we see these crypto assets conference from afar I could understand how some people would find it a little bit intimidating there's all this technical jargon and there's only smart people there what would you say to people that are on the fence about coming and do you think that they should come well I absolutely think they should come I think it's a it's a really great

5:35opportunity when they look at the blockchain industry as a whole I see you know the most the most veteran people in the space I've only been in it for of five to seven years because that's all it's been around for so you know the majority of people I come across that are just the most passionate people about blockchain and crypto crypto currencies they've been in it for a year

5:55or a year and a half and that's me included I've only really taken a deep dive into crypto cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology over the past 12 months or so it's such a new industry that there's a really great opportunity for anyone that's kind of interested in the space to get a board now this is this is the time to do it then the industry is not even formed yet we don't

6:17even know what it's going to look like so if you get into this industry even just as a thought leader or someone that's interested in the space if you get in now you're gonna have such a deep understanding we're talking about people that are forming the industries we're not talking about later stage industries where there's a lot of developed businesses on at that stage we're not

6:38there yet so is kind of a door into the blockchain world and it's it's your opportunity to be a part of this entire entire entire universe that's awesome and you know what and I would completely agree with you and the fact that this is just the beginning and people have been saying it time and time again since the beginning of last year when Bitcoin was under

7:02$1000 people were saying oh well it's too expensive it's too late to get in the industry and then it's 2000s too late but I sincerely believe that the year of crypto assets will be 2018 and who even knows what the market will look like by the time the conference starts and we're only a short while away right that's something that we're having to struggle with we don't exactly know

7:29where everything's gonna be stuff is happening so how so fast in this space but that's what makes it exciting that's super awesome so if we're interested in getting some tickets do you think that you could hook me up and can we hook up the viewers of Crypto Coin Show with any tickets and how would we get tickets absolutely more information about the

7:49the conference can be found at WWF doe asset scoff calm for your viewers specifically I've set up a promo code to get them 10% off the event passes so that's just for your audience just because I know you have such a dedicated crew here thank you awesome well that's all the time we have thanks for joining us Kareem this is blockchain interviews I'm your

8:15host Ashton Addison and I'll see you guys next time you