Blockchain momentum building in Delaware? Here’s a new meetup

When I was a kid, my brother downloaded the SETI@home* program, and I watched in awe. The program — a UC Berkeley-backed effort referencing the scientific community’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — utilized dead RAM while our desktop computer was not in use to, basically, search for aliens through a screensaver.

Sometimes it killed our dialup connection but it made us feel like we were a part of something bigger. We felt like we were Mulder and Scully.

That’s what the blockchain makes me think of.

Last month, Gov. Jack Markell unveiled a Delaware Blockchain Initiative which will make the state attractive to tech businesses. Delaware is in a unique position because of its access to the fields of banking, business formation and corporate law.

In recognition of this growing industry, a group of individuals will hold the first Delaware Blockchain Meetup by mid-July. While the blockchain is a decentralized network that enables all sorts of potentially game-changing things, this meetup is all about centralized networking (#sorrynotsorry).

http://www.meetup.com/Delaware-Blockchain-Meetup/

The meetup group is organized by COAKT cofounders Kevin Kriss and Nick Barba.

COAKT is a Delaware-based, blockchain-powered startup that focuses on business formation using crowdsourcing. The idea is to pool dead capital like, for example, an empty room in someone’s apartment for startup founders to use while attending a conference.

“One of our projects will be running a nonprofit as a decentralized organization,” Kriss said. “Whoever comes to the meetup, we’re going to utilize the Ethereum network, where we won’t need a leader or a central point of authority.”

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*(Editor’s note: That website is an amazing relic of a bygone internet.)