On April 8, 2016, innovation-minded business people and officials, investors, and start-ups from all over the world will be paying a visit to the capital of Lithuania as venture capital fund Nextury Ventures, in association with Vilnius City Municipality, will be holding a conference “The Bitcoin Conference 2016”, the largest cryptocurrency conference in the Baltic states, featuring insights from US investors, experts, practitioners, start-ups, and officials.

Global Finance, the international business and financial markets magazine, has recently identified Lithuania as one of the most innovative countries in the field of online banking, and therefore the conference will focus on showing the investors what this country can do when it comes to bitcoin and blockchain innovations.

“Lithuania in general and Vilnius in particular are becoming a center for international financial innovation. The R&D sector has already seen the arrival of such serious players as Barclays and Western Union. We think that technologies such as blockchain, cryptocurrency, and bitcoin are among the latest and most exciting financial innovations. Lithuania and Vilnius have serious intentions to invest into breakthrough in this area and to become a leader on the regional and global scale,” Marius Skarupskas, Vice-Minister of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania, has said.

“We’re happy that international companies think of Vilnius in terms of financial innovation increasingly often. We want to take a step further and to become a regional innovator in the field of young financial businesses, known as FinTech all over the globe. The conference scheduled to take place in April will provide an excellent opportunity to find out about the latest financial innovations and, with the assistance of professionals, scrutinise the possibilities that bitcoin has to offer,” Remigijus Šimašius, Mayor of Vilnius City, has said.

According to Ilja Laurs, the founder of Nextury Ventures and one of the most prominent and brightest young-generation figures in Lithuania, it isn’t by some kind of chance that Vilnius will be playing host to this event. The city’s municipal board favors innovations. “Excellent case in point is the inauguration of the Barclays technology center and the willingness of Scandinavian banks to move their IT and back-office operations to Vilnius. I believe this is both a great token of appreciation and a serious signal to other investors that Lithuania is well placed to innovate on the bitcoin front,” said Laurs.

Bitcoins are popular with young people aged 18–27, their benefits have been grasped by entrepreneurs and start-ups in the sector of FinTech. One case in point – the start-up Coinbase, which allows people to deal in bitcoins, the virtual currency – back in 2013 received a 25-million venture capital fund investment. “We make it easier for the consumers to buy, for the sellers to sell, and for the developers to develop,” Coinbase’s representatives claim.

“The Bitcoin Conference 2016” – experts from all over the world on virtual currency trends, innovation, and outlook in Lithuania, coming to Vilnius on April the 8^th.

More information about the conference: thebitcoinconference.com