A first-timer in Berlin weighs in on the blockchain event of the year.

You need to read this if you think the tagline of this piece is an exaggeration; you probably weren’t at ETH berlin. You need to read this if you were; boy can we talk about it for a year!

There’s something to be said about the blockchain scene in Europe. The American community carries a frenetic energy. India and South America had an endearing eagerness to get in on the action, to integrate prodigious talent into the crypto pool. Europe, on the other hand, manages to be inclusive while displaying an easy superiority in ideas and a purity in ideals. Sort of like a really cool professor everyone wants to hang out with, hoping for some of that genius to rub off. You only had to be a fly on the wall at the Factory Mitte venue for a glimpse into the (very exciting) present and the (very bright) future on Ethereum.

A word before we begin, though. After meet-up hopping a bit during the Blockchain Week in Berlin, one comes to peculiar realisation — there isn’t a lot of overlap within the community. Sure, we all read up on alternative chains and projects, but it feels strange to walk into a blockchain event and not recognise most of the people there. But this is a discussion for another time. Besides, there’s so much cool stuff waiting. Let’s dive right in.

It played out like an intimate chamber piece. Set in the basement, a few rows of chairs in front of a barely elevated stage. After a couple of intros, Martin Köppelmann, CEO of Gnosis, stepped on to the stage.

Things are slow and expensive, but life on Ethereum is live. Building on Ethereum is an investment in the future. When dApps are ready, all centralised systems will break. If I want a loan why can’t I collateralise assets we have?’ We hear you, @koeppelmann.

Richard Burton of Balance spoke of a ‘Cambrian explosion of projects. The number of teams working on projects that touch money is growing from the hundreds of thousands to the millions.’ That they’re going to have a harder time in the current environment is besides the point. The fact that they’re here and building, in clear defiance of the bear, is commendable, and perfectly natural for Ethereum.

On Governance

What can you possibly say about governance that hasn’t already been said? Challenge accepted. Aaron Fischer of Colony and Jorge Isquerdo of governance granddaddy Aragon put forth some brilliant points on a vital frontier for the blockchain.

Aaron: Governance should never stand int he way of consensus. Smart contract can enforce procedure, but it can’t be restrictive. Decentralised decision making can’t all be about pseudonymous entities. There must be a way to work with identities as well.

Jorge: There is a way to add human subjectivity into the (governance) mix. Like a decentralised court. Another way to resolution — If a minority feels oppressed by a decision, they can exit, with their piece of the pie.

A powerful question from Gabriel of @web3foundation: It’s being tested severely right now, but the US constitution is holding up pretty well against someone from within the system engaged in something nefarious. Are there on-chain governance safeguards?

Jorge: There is protection against bad outcomes. To safeguard minorities’ interests, or a system of decentralised arbitrage.

Aaron: There must be different thresholds to both kinds of decision making — the everyday and more serious conflict resolution. Like amendments, changing rules must be difficult, but possible.

Both panellists make interesting points about the interplay between smart contracts and local jurisdictions. They hinted at a state-optimised layer between the two, that will recognise the veracity of on-chain governance models.

In a generic but measured talk, Reto Trinkler of Trinkler Software introduced an interesting new word into the eclectic crypto vocabulary. It represents ‘What’s at stake on getting the blockchain right’ A chance to build a catallactic society, that’s inclusive and open to all that want to partake in it. What’s not to like?

A quick, effective talk by Brittany Laughlin of Lattice VC was a welcome aperitif before lunch. She spoke of community as fuel for value creation, and laid out a three-step process to going about building one — Awareness, investigation and contribution. Made it look easy. But it isn’t, is it?

Scalability and Interoperability

Inevitable, or is it? Is interoperability necessary for scalability? Asked @fredhrson, CTO of Parity.

Lefteris Karapetsas weighed in to say the primary purpose of interoperability was access to a larger pool of dApps. Philip Stehlik, co-founder of Centrifuge, was skeptical. He said he’d like to see scalability solution prove themselves first.

Igor Barinov, tech lead at POA Network said interoperability was inevitable. We agree with him. Given the uncertainty of tech timelines in this space, the synergistic nature of projects on the blockchain can be a limitation. Ironically, it can be a strength only when it is extended beyond the borders of the familiar. Cross-chain functionality shouldn’t just be passively observed; it must actively be sought.

When Andy Tudhope of Status takes the stage, the first takeaway, apart from those enviably comfortable PJs, is a reading list guaranteed to broaden one’s perceptions. He powered through centuries of history to point to the desirable evolution from ‘the web that wasn’t’ to ‘the web that could be’. That Ethereum could have a social, conversational space integrated into its very architecture is exciting and, fortunately, demonstrable. Doug Engelbart, who orchestrated the ‘mother of all demos’ would have approved.

Ethereum 2.0

Woohoo. Raul Jordan of Prysmatic Labs presented an exciting preview of Ethereum2.0. It leverages the existing PoW architecture to achieve finality, integrates compressibility of information a la sharding, and built-in randomness to define something truly new.

You can access the full presentation from the ETH Berlin website, but one of the interesting bits was the concept of horizontal scalability and its implications on efficiency — eliminating the need for nodes to sync with the entire state of the network.

Token Engineering

Many of the many highlights of the day flashed by in the token engineering summit, moderated with aplomb by Ryan Selkis of Messari. His alter ego twobitidiot did the talking, clearly. Trent McConoghy of 0cean Protocol, kept it real when he said we were all 50 years behind with respect to the essential tools for building the ecosystem. He did qualify it later when he said he simply meant there was a lot more to build. It got better.

Dmitry De Jhonge, also of the 0cean Protocol, spoke of the challenges in building within a socio-economic system. The point was that one needed to factor for, well, people. He said unexpected externalities, but you know what makes those happen.

Ryan followed up with a question about circuit breakers. Benjamin Bollen chimed in, saying the token ought to spend a year in a validator pool, after which the circuit breakers come off. Fair enough. But how and when does one go from from centralised (it is, isn’t it) and experimental to fully decentralized? Trent said it could go one of two ways. You could optimise for worst case behaviour, or simulate probabilistically. But one is pessimistic, and any simulation is limiting. Dramatic pause (in my head, he propelled on). Or, do a series of warm starts, instead of going from zero straight to production. We have a winner, ladies ang gents.

Ryan asks the panel who has nailed (at least in part), token engineering? Dimitry named Numerai, ‘because it’s simple, with not too many externalities, and the price setting baked inside the system. Besides, it also contains a prediction aspect. Benjamin advised against token engineers trying to build the whole world in one piece.

Let’s double back a little bit. How does one build for externalities like forks? Trent proposed that one needed to have a recourse mechanism, like with plasma or PolkaDot. Dimitry favoured extracting performance measures from the system. Benjamin seconded the recourse route on hierarchical systems, but he also suggested we keep our expectations modest. Keep it real, like.

The panel had a spot of advice for up and coming dev teams. Dimitry insisted on simplicity as key to building. ‘If you can’t play the game yourself or explain it simply, move on to something else’. Benjamin recommended using the culture of collaboration to one’s advantage. And Trent suggested that teams choose their battles with care. ‘Be as un-innovative as possible, except in one or two specific, hand-picked cases’.

It would have been hard for anybody to follow that panel, but Luis Iván Cuende of Aragon had no trouble. In a blitz of a talk, he walked us through the process of transitioning from the Aragon foundation to the Aragon DAO. He spoke of community-governed funds, the power of multiple teams with undiluted and undisturbed goals, and community-involved decisions. Also, some powerful tools for decentralisation. A strong shaft of energy in an environment that makes cynicism easy.

Spankchain, inclusivity under our nose

Three adult performers and one crypto outlier on stage. Ameen Soleimani, founder of Spankchain; and co-founders and adult performers Janice Griffith and Allie Knox, killed it that evening. Let’s talk tech first.

SpankChain has the first non-custodial payment channel on Ethereum with ERC20 support. They’ve designed a crypto wallet with a built in ‘reserve’ which contains ETH for gas. They’re coming up with a state-channel powered exchange, cheekily called ‘come swap’. They’ve also got, quite matter-of-factly, a stable currency called the Booty Token. In other words, some of the strongest, working tech on the Ethereum platform.

Also fascinating was why it all came together. Despite operating in a perfectly legal business, those in the adult industry are heavily and arbitrarily discriminated against by the traditional banking system. Tired of having their bank accounts blocked without explanation, they founded SpankChain with Ameen.

Setting aside SpankChain’s ‘non-giver of f**ks’ attitude, it is important to consider the wider applications of their tech in bringing about financial inclusivity to the many, many marginalised communities in the real world, particularly in developing nations.

I asked Ameen what made him, a ConsenSys alum, take the path he did. I suggested three reasons — 1. A healthy love for the adult industry; 2. Recognising the vacuum and thereby, the opportunity in that industry and 3. As a genuine attempt to help some people he cared about. He picked all the above.

In a meaty tech-heavy talk, Benjamin Bollen spoke about the OST blockchain. Described token sharding and auxiliary blockchain architecture, and providing an oraclizable platform on Ethereum.

As is the norm at any respectable ETH event, MakerDAO came on and made a splash. Mariano Conti, head of Oracles and Price feeds at Maker, roped in the crowd for a live demo of a neat alternative to expensive and draggy oracles. With a combination of signed messages and their native medianizer, he posited that the cost and risk of complete dependence on oracles could be overcome. The relevant code is already packaged and available in their exhaustive dev docs; but you already knew that. It’s Maker we’re talking about.

What is the next CryptoKitties? That’s a staid question, think bigger, Chris Robinson of Hoard Exchange coaxed. Chris said utility, entertainment and speculation are three major arenas for NFTs to capture. There is tremendous scope yet for invention. He brought fascinating insights into scarcity, productivity and returns in the economic arena of video games.

E.G. Galano spoke of expanding the stellar work at Infura by considering alternatives for non-techs to get on board the Ethereum network. Right now, most people connect to the mainnet via a web3 browser or a wallet. He also discussed more efficient ideas for easier ways of running a full node.

Utopian solutions are born only to uncomfortable introspection. After a full day of energetic MC-ing, Lane Rettig made an impassioned plea to create a humanist blockchain. It isn’t entirely untrue to say that those with the most $ to spend tend to get priority access to resources on the blockchain. How might we change this? For starters, you can pick up the hash-tag #HumanistBlockchain.

Leaves you looking forward to the next

Kartik Talwar of ETH Global said he’d take only 20 seconds. He wrapped up in 15. It’s uncanny how the ETH Global events keep getting better with each iteration. Or perhaps not.

The quality and fierce commitment of teams like ETH Berlin is inspiring and the events that spring from this can’t be anything but the collaborative phenomena they are. Is it any surprise that those who’ve been to one of these become regulars at them all?

For us at Lendroid, the event turned out to be a wonderland of conversation and a hotbed of prospective collaborations. The connects and re-connects we made in just that one day will, without exaggeration, have a far reaching effect on what we become over the next year. It’s all on you, ETH Berlin.