Dancing on the ceiling in Vancouver

In China we regularly went to concert and events, but in Vancouver we spend most of our nights at home (mainly working or reading work-related materials, some things never seem to change…). That’s actually not because we don’t want to go out, but mainly because we don’t have live-in staff, so we can’t leave the kids at home at night. But because my parents were in town we decided to watch the opening concert of Lionel Richie‘s North American Tour last night at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

Grace managed to get us front row seats, which is a special experience because you are so close to the artists and you can really feel the music (because of the speakers that are literally right in front of you). Next time I’ll bring ear plugs though. Lionel may not be one of the loudest acts, but my ears still lack some hearing the morning after the show!

The tickets were not cheap, but I guess that’s supply & demand at work. In Shanghai we were normally invited to concerts, so tickets and even backstage events were for free, and I did not always realize how expensive this can be.

I grew up with Lionel Richie’s music in the 80s and remember among others that my first slow dance in high school was on a Lionel Richie song. I had his albums on cassette tapes and later owned a couple of his CDs, but I had never been to any of his concerts, so this seemed like a good chance.

The opening act was Cee-Lo Green, who gave a decent (but not great) 40 minute performance with lots of covers of old R&B and soul songs, but also with his hit Crazy. The scarcely dressed girls that surround him made the show fun to watch, but did not add much to the music. Cee-Lo understood very well that most people were not there to see him and referred to Lionel Richie a couple of times. I like him a lot better now than before, but I can’t believe he is only 38 (he looks 20 years older, partly because he is so obese).

After the opening act the stage was rebuilt, which took about 30 minutes. That gave me some time to post pictures to social media, answer some emails and to have a beer. And then Lionel Richie came up! Although he will turn 65 next month, he looks and acts much younger. He seems to be in great shape and gave a fantastic show for all ages.

Of course all of his greatest hits were on the playlist (from Hello to Dancing on the Ceiling and from Penny Lover to Say You, Say Me), but also a lot of Commodores hits. The light show was pretty good as well, which colorful background images and animations. Lionel is a good actor and did quite some talking in between songs (introducing songs, making some jokes), which made the evening even more interesting.

The interaction with his band was great, he gave them a lot of room to perform and they did a great job. Especially the saxophonist gave a super performance, he was really amazing but Lionel did not introduce him.

I had expected the last song to be All Night Long, but Lionel Richie and his band came back on stage after that song to perform We Are The World. I did not know that he co-wrote that song with Michael Jackson, but it was the perfect ending for a great night in the Rogers Arena.

First Grouse Grind of the year

Top of Grouse Mountain, completely snow free already!

Last weekend the Grouse Grind opened for the 2014 season, but because I was in Holland I could not do the climb on opening day (like last year). I love Grouse Mountain and ran/hiked it many times last year. It’s a great work-out because it only takes an hour (or less) and the nature on Grouse is beautiful. There are not many views during the climb, but because you are normally so focused on where to put your feet for the next steps that’s not a big deal. The views from the top are fantastic of course.

Today I drove over to Grouse Mountain after work and did my first Grind of the season. I expected it to be hard, because I had not done any mountain hiking or climbing activities in months and because of too much travel over the past days. But the opposite was the case: the Grouse Grind was relatively easy and I did the trail without stopping once. I finished in 52 minutes and 39 seconds, a decent time for the first climb of the season.

Happy that I made it to the top

Probably the fact that I ran a full marathon just over 2 weeks ago makes a big difference. I especially noticed that I was able to control my breathing most of the time (just like while running a marathon), meaning that I still had some reserves. That was not always the case last year during my Grouse Grinds, so this is a good incentive to keep on running long distances next to climbing Grouse Mountain.

For people in Vancouver: there is no free parking at the bottom of Grouse Mountain anymore. The former free parking spaces close to the start of the trail now cost $2 for 3 hours (which should sufficient for a Grouse Grind plus the gondola back down), or you can park at the gondola for a bit more than that. I opted to buy a yearly parking pass for $42, considering the number of times that I’ll be at Grouse that’s probably money well spent.

Bitcoin conferences

Flying over the Dutch coastline

I am a big fan of financial tech, especially technologies that will disrupt the current financial system. For that reason I went to the peer 2 peer lending conference Lendit2014 in San Francisco 2 weeks ago, where it became clear to me that p2p lending has really made a breakthrough over the past year. Banks and funds are entering the market, by investing in it and by inventing new products (e.g. securitization of loan portfolios).

But where p2p lending (started around 2007) already made its initial breakthrough in finance, Bitcoin (started in 2009) still has some work to do. I personally believe that Bitcoin and its related technologies will have a much bigger impact on the financial world than p2p lending, but because it’s more difficult to understand and more controversial it takes longer to take off.

Over the past year I probably spent almost half my working hours on bitcoin and bitcoin related things. This includes looking at companies’ business plans, reading most bitcoin related blogs and going to bitcoin conferences. Over the past days I went to 2 conferences in Amsterdam, the inaugural Dutch Bitcoin Conference and the global Bitcoin Conference, organized by the Bitcoin Foundation. I spoke at both conferences.

The Dutch conference was held at ABN AMRO, probably a first for a bitcoin conference to be organized at a bank. Banks are still very wary of bitcoin, which is logical because if bitcoin breaks through it will be a huge risk for their business and they probably see that by now. So it was great to talk about bitcoin at a bank’s facilities and to hear banker’s views as well.

Tired and jet lagged in a Tesla

The Dutch conference was organized in just a few weeks by Rutger van Zuidam and Vincent Everts, 2 well-known trendwatchers and serial entrepreneurs in Holland. Vincent picked me up at the airport when I arrived, let me drive his Tesla to my hotel and immediately did an interview that he recorded while I was driving. The fact that I was jet lagged after a long flight did not play a role 🙂

It’s quite something what Rutger and Vincent pulled off in this very short time. They managed to get top speakers on board such as Dutch former finance minister Jan Kees de Jager, Mike Hearn of the Bitcoin Foundation, Bitcoin economist Tuur Demeester, and even a representative of the Dutch Central Bank. Despite the short time they had the conference was sold out and there were not even enough seats! There was also a lot of Dutch press representatives: TV stations, newspapers and several bloggers were present at the event.

Panel at Dutch Bitcoin Conference

The level of the discussions and conversations at this conference was quite basic, because for most participants and bankers bitcoin is still something they need to learn about. But it was a good introduction for them to learn what bitcoin is and how it might change their world. The basics of bitcoin were discussed and everybody even received some free millibits (a fraction of a bitcoin).

I had a great day at the conference, spreading the bitcoin gospel and talking to many people that I had not seen in years. Vincent Everts interviewed me on stage about my view on bitcoin and investment opportunities and I participated in a panel with 2 bankers and with Tuur Demeester. The panel was interesting but too short, it would have been good if we had been able to discuss a bit more about the potential of bitcoin for banks.

Financieel Dagblad article about the Dutch Bitcoin Conference

My main conclusion at the end of the day was that there is no real need for bitcoin yet in well-developed countries like The Netherlands where everybody has a bank account and where mobile and Internet payments are very easy. The real growth will come from the developing world, and after innovation there, bitcoin will likely change the financial system in the Western world as well.

During a TV interview with RTL I decided to talk about the price. I strongly believe that once hedge funds, PE funds and pension funds can start investing in bitcoin (through ETFs for example) the price will explode. A 10x price increase to USD 4000-5000 would be quite possible, because these funds will put tons of money and the bitcoin float is still very low. Among my friends who watched it several afterward asked how to buy bitcoin!

Jon Matonis opening Bitcoin2014, the global Bitcoin Foundation Conference in Amsterdam

The main program of the Bitcoin Foundation’s conference Bitcoin2014 took place on Friday and Saturday. In total about 1200 people from 50 countries flew to Amsterdam to attend the event. It was probably the best bitcoin conference that I have been to so far, mainly because almost all the top speakers were there and the level of presentations and conversations was very high. I learned a lot during the 2 days and I met a lot of people that I had only known virtually so far.

Before the opening of Bitcoin2014

The highlights for me were Gavin Andresen‘s State of the Bitcoin 2014, his annual speech about the core development of Bitcoin and some risks that need to be discussed (esp. the block size is a potential problem that might lead to higher transaction costs), and Circle’s product launch. Circle.com is the first bitcoin exchange/bank that is not only very easy to use (you can even transfer funds to and from your credit card!) but that also insures your bitcoins in case they should lose them or get hacked (Circle holds your private keys, which is likely what the masses will want). There were tons of other good sessions, but many are too difficult to talk about here.

Bobby Lee talking about Bitcoin in China

Another session I enjoyed was Bobby Lee‘s presentation about bitcoin in China. Main take away is that even though the PBOC (China’s Central Bank) prevents banks to work with bitcoin and bitcoin exchanges, people keep on finding ways to trade bitcoin, it’s unstoppable. Roger Ver mentioned later that last weekend’s bitcoin conference in Beijing was a huge success, despite the fact that the press and all websites were told not to report on the conference (the CEOs of the bitcoin exchanges were not even allowed to speak there!). It’s a real pity that China is trying to stop bitcoin, but in a way it’s understandable (they want to control everything and bitcoin got out of control for them). I hope they don’t shoot themselves in the foot when bitcoin will break through.

Speakers dinner

I also participated in a panel about bitcoin investment opportunities, which I really enjoyed. The New York Times journalist Nathaniel Popper led the discussion with Roger Ver (Bitcoin Jesus), Nick Shaleck (Ribbit Capital), Steve Waterhouse (Pantera Capital) and myself. Among others we talked about centralization vs. decentralization, the price of bitcoin, and new ideas for killer apps. A detailed write-up of the discussion can be found here on Coindesk.

Venue of Bitcoin2014

I had a great time in Amsterdam, although I probably should have stayed a few days longer. Luckily I did not have a real jet lag this time (despite the 9 hour time difference between Vancouver and Amsterdam), but I will need to catch up on sleep over the next 1-2 days. I even slept on the plane for a couple of hours just now (I am writing this while flying home), which is unusual for me on a daytime flight.

Flying home again

Without a phone for 3 days

On Sunday I did the Vancouver Marathon, which was a painful experience. I ran a couple of marathons over the past years, but this one was by far the wettest and coldest, and as a result my time was not great (3 hours 52 min for the 42.2 km). Until the halfway point things went very well, I managed to stay in the 3:30 pace group and at 21.1 km we clocked 1 hour 44 min. Around km 24 there was a hill where I slowed down a bit, but I could not get back to the group afterward. From that point onwards the run became harder and harder, and the last 10 km around Stanley Park were not fun. I was so cold and wet that my muscles started to cramp and every step hurt. Anyway, although the time could have been better I managed to finish.

After the race I walked over to my boat which was moored close to the finish line. I put the heating as high as possible and took a hot shower. Slowly my body temperature went back up and after an hour I felt okay again. I recharged my phone, had a lunch on board and took a short nap, before repacking my things to drive to the airport and catch a flight to San Francisco. Because I wasn’t sure what airline I was flying I wanted to call Grace from the car to check it for me, but I decided to just look at the screens at the airport. I wish I had called her, because now I only found out while checking in that I did not have my phone with me…

I checked FindMyiPhone on my iPad and noticed that the phone was still on the boat. It was too late to drive back and pick it up, so I went through US immigration at Vancouver airport without my phone. I never realized how important a phone is for my daily life, you take it as a given that you have one on you all the time. During the past 3 days in San Francisco I realized that I am sort of addicted to it. I keep on checking my jeans pockets for my phone for example, even though I know I don’t have it with me.

If I want to take pictures (which I normally do continuously, many of them end up on my Flickr photostream) I normally use my phone, but now I can’t do that. Luckily I have my iPad mini with me, but it’s different. Its camera is not as good and it feels more awkward to take pictures with it, but at least I can record some of the things that I see. I also normally don’t walk around town with my iPad because it does not fit in my pocket. Next to that my iPad does not have a data SIM card in it, so I need wifi to go online. So outside the hotel I can’t check my email, use Google Maps or upload pictures to Flickr, FB, Twitter or WeChat.

Without a phone you’re more focuses on the here & now, I realized I was less distracted during the Lendit 2014 conference by incoming mails or messages. That’s a positive thing and can of course also be achieved by putting the phone in do not disturb mode (I may actually do that more often). But the downside is that you miss your ‘second brain’. I am so used to quickly checking things on my phone during conversations, for example when talking about a person I like to find out how I got to know the person or what email exchanges we had. Or while talking about a certain company I normally quickly check their website or their Crunchbase profile.

When you don’t have a phone you notice much more that others do have phones and are constantly using them. While at the Lendit conference everyone around me was using their phones, and in a way I felt left out. During the breakfasts, lunches and dinners many of the people were on their phones at least part of the time. I normally would not notice that because it’s normal and I do it myself as well, but without a phone you suddenly realize this.

The good thing is that it’s quiet without a phone, because nobody can interrupt me with a phone call or a text. But I also feel a bit guilty, because I know I am missing a lot of calls and texts and people probably don’t understand why I don’t get back to them. In a way it was an interesting experience but I look forward to having my phone back in a few hours in Vancouver. I don’t think I will easily forget my phone another time when traveling!