TQuorum Paris — A Synopsis

Developers, bakers, researcher and contributors all around the Tezos ecosystem flocked to Paris for the TQuorum conference in the iconic venue Station F. In the heart of the coworking space, surrounded by Startups incubated by the most influential companies in the world, Tezos took center stage.

Organized by Tocqueville Group a set of diverse panels and talks were held. From discussions about baking, protocol amendment, smart contract development to regulatory questions covering every aspect an attendee would want.

The day was kicked off with a greeting from TQs Alison Mangiero, and with Ryan Jesperson from the Tezos foundation providing an introduction to Tezos and its values. Arthur Breitman took a step back in his talk and provided a bird’s eye view of protocols with a fee-based model for operations.

Followed by panels and the technical workshops held in parallel after lunch. Some of my personal highlights of these talks that I was able to attend in this packed day.

The Power of the People

Jacob Arluck from TQ, Marco Stronati from Nomadic Labs and Cryptium Labs’ Adrian Brink under the guidance of Alison Mangiero discussed protocol amendments. The panel provided great insights in the exciting things that will happen in the near future.

The Burebrot proposal which was subject to heated discussions in the community was one of the main topics. Adrian clarified that the initial proposal released under the title Burebrot was only a list of potential changes and not a complete proposal. The next proposal will probably contain changes to the Quorum and the possibility to directly delegate from a tz address, also answering a question from the audience about bonding pools and providing his thoughts behind that.

AirGap’s secure key handling approach

Andreas Gassmann gave an introduction to AirGap and highlighted the problems arising with giving all the responsibility of key handling back to the user and how AirGap’s approach tackles these various issues. Andreas also announced the latest release of AirGap which allows “One Transaction Delegation” and focused on how a developer on Tezos can integrate AirGap and let their users interact out of the browser with a mobile phone and profiting from the best security.

Re-visiting and insights to Proof of Stake

Cryptium Labs’ Awa Sun Yin gave a refresher on different Proof of Stake protocols, pointing out that PoS is not equal to the Consensus algorithm used by these protocols and touched on the different approaches for coming to Consensus. Providing an in-depth look at the properties and value propositions of Tezos with its Liquid Proof of Stake, Cosmos with Bonded Proof of Stake and Polkadot with Nominated Proof of Stake. Comparing their methods on how they bring security to their networks and outlining their key differences.

In closing but just the beginning..

After an eventful day, the diverse crowd met again for the cocktail reception in the evening, with a big bigger group forfeiting their break in a bar close by. The evening was filled with numerous interesting discussions that sparked up, as many met for the first time after only having communicated over the internet. Closing out the conference in a restaurant after the cocktail reception.

With this being the first event in a series leading up to the TQuorum New York in September. Recording were also made of these talks should be available online soon so you can still be part of the TQuorum Paris and participate in the next one.