The annual Satoshi Roundtable is taking place at a secret resort in North America. The event has brought together 40 leaders of the blockchain industry. The live broadcast is available in Twitter and Reddit.  

The main topic of the roundtable, as expected, is the most important problem of the bitcoin industry in the recent months, i.e. the question of the methods and schedule of the block size scaling and the future of Bitcoin within the limited system capacity. It seems that the principal discussion will revolve around soft and hard-forks, Segregated Witness and Bitcoin Classic.

Opening remarks at the conference were made by Bruce Fenton, CEO of Bitcoin Foundation. The first speaker was Patrick Byrne from Overstock. In his speech devoted mainly to the prospects of using the blockchain technology, he suggested that “80-90% of the cost of Wall Street could [be] stripped out with blockchain.”

More than 40 representatives of bitcoin companies, Bitcoin Core developers and investors focused on fintech startups are attending the conference. The earlier announced list of speakers includes Gavin Andresen (Bitcoin Foundation), Adam Beck (President of Blockstream), Bitcoin Core dev Matt Corallo, Peter Todd and Luke Dashjr, Jeff Garzik (Founder, Bloq), Justin Newton (Founder and CEO, Netki), Gabriel Abed (CEO, Bitt), Charles Allen (CEO, BTCS), Mike Belshe (CEO, BitGo), Micah Winkelspecht (CEO, Gem), Roger Ver (CEO, Bitcoin.com), David Johnston (Chairman, Factom), Alex Petrov (CIO, BitFury), Charlie Lee (Director of Engineering, Coinbase/Founder of Litecoin), Marco Streng (CEO, Genesis Mining), Jez San (Angel Investor) and many others.

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, is also expected to come after he was invited to participate in the roundtable by Adam Back, President of Blockstream.

Live broadcast of the event can be followed on the official Twitter account of the roundtable and in a trend on Reddit. However, no live video or audio is provided. As it was explained earlier by Bruce Fenton, it may happen that bitcoin companies’ representatives discuss problems which, if broadcasted, could cause a confusion and misunderstanding among the general public. Fenton added also:

“People don't want to lose face and will always act differently in front of a camera.”

Satoshi Roundtable is considered to be one of the most important events of the year for the bitcoin industry. The conference is traditionally held in a secret location, the precise address is only disclosed in invitations. The current event takes place at a “resort in North America,” according to the Satoshi Roundtable official page. The first conference was held in 2015 on an island in the Caribbean.  

Elena Platonova