Blockbar The Hague: Year 1 in review

January 14, 2019 | Blockbar Blog

Blockbar is the The Hague based coworking space for people interested in blockchain/cryptocurrency concepts & applications. On January 26th 2019 it exists for exactly 1 year. Time for a year overview!

2018 was an exciting year for Blockbar, blockchain enthusiasts and The Hague. The year of Bitcoins ‘all time high’ started with overcrowded meetup events and lots of mass media exaggerating the use of “blockchain”. Normally meetups would just have 20 to 50 people attending. In December and January the meetup locations were full of people. Some just curious to the promise of blockchain concepts, also lots of (wannabe) investors joined.

So much hype, falsy information, misunderstanding. At the same time so many people that should know about the new possibilities Bitcoin has given to society.. Technological developments shouldn’t be owned and discussed by only a few tech people; influencial technology needs to be discussed and comprehended by a broad audience, by a big part of society.

This was the beginning of Blockbar. The Netherlands already has a big crypto scene with lots of recurring, worthful meetups. In Amsterdam there was already the Amsterdam Blockchain Lab at A-Lab, initiated by Henk van Cann and Bas Wisselink. The Hague could use such a space as well: A space where anyone that’s interested in crypto is welcome to work and learn. A space where blockchain is discussed, where knowledge sharing has a prevalence over hype and where real infrastructure and applications are built. Marja Hollander, Bart van Maarseveen and Bart Roorda started Blockbar: an ecosystem where early-tech adopters, developers, industry experts and blockchain ethusiasts connect.

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Blockbar – The first months

The first Blockbar meetup happened on Friday January 26th, 2018: Blockbar 1st: Ethereum, Bitcoin, Komodo & Decred. We had multiple talks during the day. Blockbar was launched.

A week after the first meetup with talks & sessions we started the weekly coworking Fridays. We were bootstrapping a ‘blockchain lab’.

This was a good start. A simple concept: Meet the blockchain community, every Friday, at Blockbar. Beginners and experts are all welcome.

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Blockbar – Community

During the year many people visited and joined Blockbar. The coworking Fridays were good times with discussions, information exchange, collaborations & the start of new business. The space offered a setting to informally meet, therefor getting to know the blockchain / cryptocurrency scene. Not only people joined from The Hague; Blockbar got visitors from all over The Netherlands and even the world.

Collectables, token economics, Bitcoin, Steemit, EOS, Decred, Komodo, BarterDEX, Ethereum, legal, potential changes in society, streaming money for IoT devices… and many other topics were discussed. University teachers came by to learn about how to create a curriculum on blockchain. Also, businesses and projects were bootstrapped – see below (‘Project highlights’) for some examples.

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Blockbar – Project highlights

Many projects were developed or even started at Blockbar. For convienence I’ve listed some of these projects.

» ArtBay, Azelo (art marketplace), CryptoPepes (a collectable using the ERC721 standard), Tokenwoof (TweetDeck for crypto news), Viisiitcoin (door to door marketing), CoinCollect (safe & secure mobile wallet for all your coins), BLOCKROCK (Dutch crypto projects podcast), OEHU (Open Energy Hub) & Blockchain Innovation Week.

Blockbar collaborated with existing and new communities, such as AI Lab Den Haag, ETH DEV NL, #CRYPT070, The Hague Tech, YES!Delft, The Hague University, the The Hague municipality, blockchain030, and BLOCKDAM. Multiple of the events we organized were organized in collaboration with other groups.

Blockbar – Events

During the year there have been many events. So many that Blockbar is the number 3 tech meetup in The Hague if you look at the RSVP stats.

Every Friday we’ve had the coworking days. Then every fourth Friday there was a bigger event with talks, workshops and discussions.

Next to the Fridays the Blockbar community organized multiple other knowledge sharing sessions. Some of these events are listed below.

BarterDEX LP Workshop – Earn your basic income!

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Crypto trading workshop

Cryptotraders is a company based at The Hague Tech, that does high frequency trading. See twitter.com/blockbar070/.. for the video recording of this talk.

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EOS/Telos governance

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Blockchain Innovation Week

Blockchain Innovation Week was a two day event with lectures & workshops, during the week of Bitcoin Pizza Day. https://blockbar.nl/biw/

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Distributed governance

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ICO Analysis

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Other events

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Blockbar – Future

2019 has just been started. The vision is still the same: Share knowledge about the new possibilities of blockchain & cryptocurrencies, share & connect. In 2019 we will continue organizing coworking days, setting up beginners sessions, workshops and other events.

Make sure you are member of the Meetup-group: meetup.com/blockbar. This way you’ll get notified on future events. You can also connect with Blockbar on Twitter: @blockbar070.

Next meetups:

Thanks for being interested in Blockbar. Hope to see you around!

~  bartwr

@blockbar070