It was confirmed that lots of participants who recently attended the event in Miami, one of the biggest global events to take place in the U.S. since the pandemic began, tested positive for COVID-19 after returning home from the conference.
According to Coin Telegraph reports, Bloomberg named the Miami Bitcoin Conference a "hot spot for Covid 19," and the Gizmodo newspaper reported that it was "probably the latest Covid-19 super spread event."
Eric Wall, CIO of Arkane Research, underwent a CT examination after suffering from a high fever and chest pain. Medical staff suspected blood clotting in the patients’ lungs, but no blood clots were found, and Eric Wall was reportedly discharged and returned home. And tweeting Thursday that he had “Just tested positive for COVID” and sharing a photo of himself in an ambulance or hospital attached to medical equipment.
Larry Cermak, research director at the Block, a cryptocurrency news channel and information website, said he hadn’t gotten it, but “everyone” whom he hung out with during the three days of conferencing and partying did
Luke Martin of Coinist, an automated trading software developer, also admitted to having tested positive for Covid-19.
At the conference, the organization hasn’t sought vaccination verification or masks. According to CNBC, at least 12,000 people participated in the event for three days at the Mana Wynwood Convention Center in Miami, and no social distancing was reported.
Miami City and the conference organisers reportedly have not made any official position regarding the outbreak or tracking the attendees.
It is a disparage to the hard-working medical professional worldwide who spent more than a year fighting the virus that some loud voices from Bitcoin 2021 celebrate the super spreader event.
They argue that the freedom for the virus to move between attendees 20% who are from abroad is proof that BTC frees people from the governments' clutches and seems entirely tone-deaf to the damage this will cause to many lives, including those least fortunate.
These small but loud voices in the blockchain community miss the excellent opportunity to use the technology to fight a global virus, which would inevitably reframe all crypto assets in a more positive light. This is what the Oneledger project aims to do. The team sees blockchain as the underlying technology that can solve real problems that affect life today, with the pandemic in their sights. It is the new version of the merger of health and technology.
Blockchain enables verifiable information to be shared, giving confidence in the authenticity of the data. Their app, OnePass (International Health Passport), which testing labs have adopted, stores users vaccination or tests records in a manner that cannot be duplicated and would have allowed the BTC21 event to quickly and securely operate safely.
The Bitcoin 2021 organisation needed not to save data anywhere. They could have simply asked attendees to download the app, have their vaccine or test information uploaded and show the attendant QR code at security checkpoints, mitigating the fears of government intervention. The user has complete control of their data, and user’s to the unique characteristics of blockchain would have rendered any arguments against the security of such technology irrelevant.
Industry veterans lead the OneLedger team with years of experience that includes Fortune 500 Companies. This experience gives way to a deeper understanding of what is possible with a blockchain and token to the wild fandom within the community.
OneLedger CEO George Connolly mentions that “Some alienate the cryptocurrency, taking away from the blockchain technology to hype the prices for short term, but ironically for a long term, stable technologies lead to the value of the project.”
As the borders open, travel will soon be a part of our lives, and more big conferences like Bitcoin 2021 will be held. Rather than shout about the freedom of blockchain technology, showing the world how to use that technology to enable freedom of movement should be argued to secure the conferences from the virus.