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Speaker "Garrett Macdonald" Details Back

 

Topic

The Energy Blockchain in 20 Minutes

Abstract

We would like to present an objective overview of Ethereum as it applies to the electricity industry, including what the main technology requirements and bottlenecks are, where we are today in terms of adoption of Ethereum in Energy, and how various groups are pushing for energy-specific features to be built within the Ethereum ecosystem that ultimately benefits the whole, and a dive into the tech behind these requirements.

Profile

Garrett MacDonald was born and raised in Idaho and, at the age of just 14, was the first person to ever fund a startup with tokenized equity. His IPO for Cognitive Mining LLC sold out in just 3 days where he raised 2,500 bitcoins. At the time, the investment was worth around $12,000 and he grew the company in less than 2 years to a market-cap of over $1 million. Cognitive was publicly traded on three online bitcoin exchanges and in the early bitcoin days was regarded as one of the best of all the assets trading on these exchanges. Garrett designed ASIC hardware specifically for mining bitcoin, managed negotiations on seven-figure deals and ultimately exceeded the expectation set in all of the agreements that had been structured. In 2014 after selling Cognitive Mining LLC, Garrett founded Cognitive Inc which provided services in the crypto-currency industry including blockchain design, mining ASIC design, currency trading and management consulting. Garrett continues to find himself immersed in the blockchain space and has now dedicated his time towards working on blockchain applications that will positively impact the world. He is currently working on the Energy Web Foundation—a blockchain protocol designed specifically for the energy sector.