Some 80 leaders in digital finance have been exiting the island after a week of business meetings, forum discussions and networking events for the emerging industries.

The Bermuda Digital Finance Forum has demonstrated significant interest in the Bermuda platform under its pioneering Digital Asset Business legislation enacted in 2018. A slew of announcements have been made in recent days demonstrating how the island has been positioned to play a leading industry role, going forward.

The forum has mushroomed into a major international event, beginning last year, after first promulgated by Penrose Partners, a Bermuda digital asset advisory firm. It is also a digital asset adviser to the Government of Bermuda.

The Penrose partnership with Salt began with last year’s event.

The conference aims to drive mass adoption of digital finance solutions, facilitate focused dialogues around digital transformation, and foster curated networking experiences — not just internationally, but importantly here in Bermuda.

Penrose partner Sean Stapley grew up on the island and that made him aware of the thriving international business community and its potential fit to digital finance.

He said: “We have a phenomenal ecosystem of companies that have been built here. But a key piece that we keep hammering on is getting Bermudians involved.”

He said that was why it was so important to distribute the USDC stablecoins into the community and on-board merchants to accept the digital payments.

At last year’s event, Bermuda’s first fully compliant USDC airdrop allowed Bermuda residents to experience the speed and ease of digital payments, as USDC was directly placed into their digital wallets.

This year, the Digital Payments Workshop on Thursday evening was designed to educate users on the use of the funds for a similar airdrop of USDC to hundreds of Bermuda residents.

It was part of a planned community day, but due to the bad weather, changes were made, shifting the afternoon workshop into the early evening.

The Digital Payments Market, the practical part of the exercise, was moved to Friday at Pier 6 from 4pm to 9pm, when vendors will be positioned to accept the distributed USDC.