Neo Colorado hosts “Neo and Beer” to discuss blockchain with local community (Sep 2019)
Note: This article was originally published on Narrative, which shut down its content platform in December 2019. For archival purposes, this event review has been migrated to Medium.
On September 26th, Neo Colorado and Denver Blockchain co-hosted Neo and Beer at River North Brewery in Denver, CO. The event attracted general interest parties and an infosec hacker from the Colorado Blockchain community.
One Neo and Beer attendee had been following Neo since its initial coin offering in September 2016. Other attendees were in the project management, health care, and investment industries.
Stephen Chavez, the chief information security officer at Risktronics, talked a little bit about the security audits his firm has done, citing energy sectors vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks. Stephen also shared his story covered in Forbes, where he and a partner hacked his wheelchair so an Xbox controller could take control. In addition to his security audits, Stephen is currently seeking research funds and devices (such as pacemakers) to hack at and make more secure.
NEO topics of discussion
Topics of conversation included my background in the Neo ecosystem, and how Neo News Today does articles, live interviews, podcasts, and strives to inform the Neo community. I also talked about attending both Neo DevCon one and two, chatting with all sorts of ecosystem members from across the world, and attending the 2019 Neo Community Assembly in Shanghai.
At one point, we all had gotten into a discussion about digital identity on the blockchain. With regards to Neo, we talked about NeoID as a Neo-specific identity standard. Whereas external identity protocols would likely be a scenario for interoperability between chains.
Another popular conversation surrounded Neo’s consensus node centralization. Attendee’s discussed the merits of centralized versus decentralized systems. One particular pro many agreed on was the speed at which updates can be pushed live in less decentralized networks. However, someone did express concern over the power of the Chinese government, and if it could shut the Neo blockchain down as five of the seven MainNet nodes are located in China.
The last Neo-centric discussion topic surrounded Neo3, which is tentatively expected to launch in Q2 2020. Neo and Beer attendees were primarily interested in learning about oracles, NeoFS: decentralized and distributed storage, and proposed token models.
To keep up with Neo Colorado, visit our website, Twitter page, or Meetup page.
