MADANA on tour: Hong Kong & China

Our CEO Christian Junger and Business Strategist Yan Schreier recently went on a ten-day tour through Hong Kong and China. Now we want to share their impressions with you.

In Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and Vietnam crypto communities, tech investors and legal prerequisites are developing quickly. It was clear to us, that China is not the only blockchain hub in Asia anymore. Though we decided to focus on just a few destinations on this tour. This was the only way to build a foundation for an Asian MADANA community, get to know the people and connect to local VCs. The overall goal was to grow MADANAs audience in Asia. Fortunately, we already knew some Lisk enthusiasts in China, who helped us with organizing meetups to reach people interested in MADANA.

Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong early in the morning after a stopover in Amsterdam. It was burning hot when we got out of the plane and we wanted to get some rest. But there was not much time for that, as we had investor talks lined up from the get-go. We heard that in Hong Kong are many blockchain investors, so we wanted to make the most of our time.

The strategy was to kick-start as many conversations as possible so we could continue the talks later from Berlin. While Christian and Yan went from meeting to meeting, the team of Genesis Block helped us organizing MADANAs very first meet-up in Asia. While wearing our MADANA shirts we even met a Blockchain enthusiast in the streets, who joined us at the last minute.

The meetup consisted not only of the local community. We also had people joining from South Africa, Russia, and North America. We got some great feedback and met a lot of other Lisk supporters.

A nice surprise was that MADANA was not completely unknown to most of our audience. So we were able to do more than pitching our idea – we also gave a confidential preview of our white paper. After the official end of the meetup, some of them joined us for the evening to discuss blockchain and crypto related topics. We would have loved to stay longer, but our flight to Shanghai was already scheduled for the next morning.

Shanghai

At first sight, Shanghai reminded us of Hong Kong. The same weather, skyscrapers everywhere and the streets full of people, food, and flashing lights. But a closer look revealed some differences. Traveling in Hong Kong are much faster since the relevant areas are just a few stations apart from each other. In Shanghai this is very different–it is huge and rambling, with security scans at every subway entrance. Moreover, it is known for its impressive skyline and a striving expat community.

In Shanghai, we met a couple of VC firms such as Gobi Capital and pitched our vision. Since data-driven marketplaces are a big thing in China, MADANAs unique spin on it really fascinated them. After presenting the MADANA ecosystem in English and Chinese language, our model to preserve privacy by design raised a lot of interest. Further, we exchanged our thoughts about the current blockchain space, its development and areas of future potential in the Asian market.

The most important reason to go to Shanghai was to gather with the Lisk Elite Group delegates, who secure the greatest part of the Lisk Network. They’ve come from all over China to meet us. Luiz, the President of the Lisk Elite Group, was helping us to reach important people and invited them to come over. That’s how we got to know many high ranked Lisk delegates, which are dedicated and supportive blockchain believers, especially for sidechain projects as MADANA. We felt like home and were immediately on the same page.

Several hours of intense discussions about MADANA, it’s use-cases and ecosystem, we also talked about Lisk related topics. That’s when the brand new Elite Incubator in Xiamen came up, which was recently founded by the Elite Group. It will be a hub for future Lisk sidechain projects in Asia. We believe it can be a great accelerator for Lisk, by bringing startups and developers into the Lisk ecosystem. We support that! As MADANA is the first major sidechain project on Lisk, we share a common vision to expand the Lisk ecosystem with promising projects.

Qingdao & Beijing

Some cities in China receive quite a push to become a future center of emerging technologies. One of them is Qingdao, which has the ambitious goal to become a future leader in Blockchain technology. We visited not only to tell about MADANA but were asked to give advice on blockchain technology trends and discuss policy limitations in Europe. An important topic for all participants was the question of how to attract the right people to build a high-quality blockchain community. We hope we were able to add some valuable insights. We definitely took the opportunity to bring MADANA to a new audience. Afterward, we were invited to some great seafood and Tsingtao beers which were brewed locally.

Only a single day to spare, we took our last stop in Beijing – the capital of China. That’s where we met Leo again, a high ranked Lisk delegate, and a blockchain veteran who is very interested in the MADANA project. He is also the founding partner of Whales Capital. We discussed our collaboration and next steps regarding the market expansion to China.

All in all this tour was a brief, but a remarkable experience. We met with VCs, the community, and fellow blockchain startups. We put the foundation for a thriving MADANA community in place. Thank you for welcoming us!