Interview with Victoria Gago, Co-founder of EBC | European Blockchain Convention

Transcript

[Music] good morning everyone uh I'm anonin co-ceo of riblon tech PR agency uh here with me today is Victoria Gago uh co-founder of the European blockchain convention and digital assets for good morning Victoria good morning Alona how are you good Lous tired and excited great to hear uh so we're here at ebc1 it's been 6 and a half years that you've been uh establishing this wonderful event with your partner how has it been it's been a long journey so as we say in crypto probably those six and a half years are probably 13 years 30 life times exactly h no it's been amazing I

mean to be part of this industry following from the side it's been amazing and also for us as a company we started with an an addition back in 2018 where we were 500 people uh to today we have 5,123 people registered wow amazing growth amazing growth yeah so what trends have you've been seeing in the past year that you haven't seen before I think for us as organizers um well I guess everybody has been seeing how the institutions are getting into the space but also for me as an organizer one way of seeing it seeing it is some years back I could invite a bank to come but they would be like yeah we're doing

doing some tests behind the scenes but I can't really talk about it so if I come I won't be able to say anything and then I was like okay then come and moderate a table a panel instead nowadays the institutions both of course Crypton native institutions but like the financial traditional institutions can talk about what they're doing and I think that's super exciting and also you see a lot of institution around today uh and I'm sure that will be something we will continue to see but it's very exciting very good so we have uh for the first time digital assets hor coming up in London this upcoming February uh so what do you expect it to be different from ABC what do you have planned for that good question so didl Forum came to live this year as a new event um we

started in April this year so this lasses forum is much smaller than ABC uh only focusing on asset managers hedge funds Banks corporates so we decided to have the headquarters so to say the event happening in London because that's like where the Main Financial you know district is in Europe um so that event is focusing only on content only on meetings doing business whereas EBC much bigger uh we have lots of institution yes ption but we also have the hackathon happening I'm hinting over there because the hackathon is literally over there we have the stup battle happening all there so it's a good mix of hackers startups corporates

uh financial institutions we have the whole ecosystem here and that d as a forum is much more institu perfect great to hear looking forward yeah definitely so uh an interesting Trend we've been seeing lately is the onchain wealth management um how have you seen it coming to life in your uh area of expertise yes I think that's super exciting seeing this new concept of unchain wealth management so basically um foundations sit on a lot of money yeah and as we all know they have the money in crypto and stable coins right so as with everybody in life we need to diversify right you need to diversify to minimize risks so what we're seeing lately with

new funds coming to the market is offering well basically we Management Services to these uh foundations where these foundations tokenized products can invest into for example a black rock fund so um they don't need to sell any crypto get Euros or dollars to invest in a black rug fund but they can do it onchain that's why onchain wealth management and that's super important for this Foundation because they need to diversify and I think that's exciting right because well I think it's important funny I mean I worked in finance before before jumping into this industry um and of course we've all seen how trafi is getting closer to defi blockchain crypto embracing that new technology but now we seen the opposite

defy crypto getting close to straty and I think that's exciting too because because we need to at the end of the day I don't believe we need to like erase anything uh I do believe that probably most Financial products will run on blockchain in the future but I also think it's interesting that these foundations and other plac in Industry can get access to maybe some more boring products but with less risk that's it absolutely so that basically leads me to ask questions so you came from Finance that's your background what uh LED you and your partner to kind of like change gears and move to establish in this wonderful foundation and creating this event for us well it all started I moved to Barcelona many years back 10 years back

actually to work in a in a asset manager here in Barcelona back then it was the largest independent asset manager uh Thea Capital markets and I remember that I was like okay I'm surrounded mainly by men yes finance and so I was like I'm going to start my own women's Association and I was like I want to put together a lot of different how to say professional backgrounds together I mean like I didn't want to have people from Finance or just from what one industry so I put together like I think a really cool association called Exel Network different professional backgrounds one of the ladies was very techy and see started talking about blockchain in late 2016 ER and she was like blockchain this

blockchain that this and that and I was like I don't understand anything nothing and also I don't care about technology back then I think I had my iPhone that's the technology I had but I didn't care about technology but she was like so excited so I started to listen to her and then she invited me to Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona February 2017 where bikin was speaking amen so I saw him on stage and I remember seeing the whole stage hacked of people like people were sitting on the floor because there was no seats left and I was looking at bikin and I was like you look very thin a bit dirty very strange need sunlight yeah you need sunlight I I mean I was no I was confused about seeing so much attention and so much

like excitement in that room and then that guy and then I was like okay he probably knows he need probably he's probably building something super cool so yeah I got super excited I mean first with ethereum really excited and then I was like Daniel we work together and this as a manager I was like Daniel let's create a blockchain event for the for this industry the same way we've seen it in finance this do that for for blockchain and he was like no why shouldn't I mean I'm a financial analyst in my excellent brunberg so I was like why should I and I was like okay [ __ ] it then I asked him again in 2018 I was like we need to do this and I convinced him and that's how it all that up amazing that's great story um so you've basically been

establishing this with your spouse with your life partner yes how is it like working together and you know building a life together as well uh I think I have the best partner uh both business wife and and and private we have two kids together one is 9 months old and the other one is two and a half I have six months old oh it's okay so knew that oh yeah I love babies though before I didn't like babies but now I love them um no but I think it's amazing I mean I couldn't trust anyone more than him we have everything together two kids uh two events two mortgages um no it's great and I also think what's amazing is we're so different like so different he's a machine with Excel I mean like if you want he'll build complex Financial

models no but he's he's the do one and I think more I'm the Visionary I'm the one with the ideas so it's it's good I mean we can discuss anything but we'll come to a conclusion like so it's good I'm happy and I guess we all know like one of the toughest things against when you build a company or a startup is like problems with your founder and and being able to solve it and I think we're really good at that so I'm really happy I'm really happy I think this industry is very uh thankful to have you to uh kind of like bringing this fresh vibe to Europe and you know bringing this like new sense of uh What uh blockchain events can be that's if anything you'd

like to add for our viewers no I think that's it it's 10th edition and I'll see you next year 11th Edition thank you very much Victoria thank you ala and thank you to everybody