Overstock’s Crypto-Advocate CEO Patrick Byrne Gave Keynote Speech on Investing in Blockchain

The CEO of Overstock, Patrick Byrne recently delivered a refreshing speech when he has asked to be the keynote speaker about investing in blockchain technology. The event was hosted in New York by Oppenheimer & Co.

Oppenheimer Holdings is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company offering investment banking, financial advisory services, capital markets services, asset management, wealth management, and related products and services worldwide.

The blockchain summit held by them is an institutional Blockchain conference focused on cloud-enabled applications. Over 30 leading Blockchain companies, consultants, and projects will attend this inaugural year.

The conference topics are heavily organized around three early use-cases: logistics, digital securities, and financial services. Industry thought leaders will discuss the compliance, governance and infrastructure food chain required to enable these applications.

Patrick opened his presentation by stating that even traditional securities are not very direct and can be seldom questionable. To drive home his point, he said:

“All the corporate shares in America are owned by the company called Cede & Co, and what you actually have is a contractual claim against a corporation, that has a contractual claim against another corporation, that has a contractual claim against DTCC, that has a contractual claim against Cede & Co. What can go wrong?”

He said that Blockchain can help in increasing transparency and creating a trustless system. He compared blockchain to a:

“ magic ledger which is cryptographically protected, public and transparent – no way to cheat.”

He then turned the attention to tZero which is going to be launched soon. It uses technology from Bitsy, a crypto exchange and wallet provider that was acquired by Medici for the sum of $12 million USD. Patrick has seen his company lose at least a third of its market value last month, so the launch of tZERO is very important as the company expects it to help it to get back on its feet.

The team is very optimistic about the future right now, however, as they believe that the blockchain can have a great future even when separated from the cryptocurrencies, which are on a bad time now.