CoinDesk is thrilled to welcome back Deloitte as a title sponsor for Consensus 2017, our third annual blockchain technology summit.
Deloitte is one of the world's largest professional services firms, working with 90% of the largest financial institutions across its audit, tax, consulting and advisory businesses. Its blockchain team has invested substantial time and energy in evaluating the potential for this new technology to introduce new opportunities for its clients, and those investments will be on full display again next spring in New York City.
Eric Piscini, principal at Deloitte, said:
"After the fantastic success we had last year at Consensus, it was a very easy decision for us to return as title sponsor in 2017, and we even increased our investment. While we saw significant traction in 2016 to 'make blockchain real' across industries, we believe 2017 will be the year of large scale adoption and implementations. We are looking forward to meeting the rest of the blockchain ecosystem at Consensus 2017 and engaging with our clients to transform their businesses."
Deloitte was one of the earliest institutions to investigate the potential of blockchain technology in 2014, when it disclosed it was working on several internal applications including automated client auditing, financial reconciliation, land registry and loyalty points programs.
Since then, Deloitte has continued to lead the growing community of enterprises exploring blockchain applications, and its internal blockchain and cryptocurrency community now boasts 750 members in more than 40 countries. This year alone, blockchain pilots have been tested at more than 100 enterprise technology companies, global banks, exchanges and insurance companies — growth which shows no signs of abating in 2017.
"It was a pleasure to work with Deloitte on Consensus 2016, and we couldn't be happier to work with them again this year on the 2017 summit," said CoinDesk Managing Director Ryan Selkis.
"The work that Deloitte does every single day in educating its clients on the potential of this new technology aligns perfectly with the education we provide our readers and event attendees."
Consensus 2016 included representatives from nearly all of the top global financial institutions, regulatory bodies and technology giants, as well as founders from startups who collectively represented 95% of the total venture capital invested to date in the industry, such as 21, Blockstream, Circle, Coinbase, R3 and Ripple.
CoinDesk's 2017 event is anticipated to boast more than 2,000 leaders from blockchain industry startups, financial institutions and developer communities, and it will include two-and-a-half days of in-depth discussions and workshops.
Sessions at the conference will be divided into ‘Business’ and ‘Technical & Policy’ tracks which highlight the opportunities and challenges facing the blockchain community regarding the development of applications in regulated areas like global payments, smart contracts, clearing and settlement and identity and device management.
A supplemental "Implementation Workshops" track is also a planned addition for 2017.
Deloitte leads the pack of early return sponsors for Consensus 2017. Others include Davis Polk, Genesis Trading, Goodwin Proctor, Pantera Capital, Ripple and Silvergate Bank.
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