DeFi Guide To Devcon 5 in Osaka

How to get your fair portion of decentralized finance at this year’s Ethereum Developer Conference 😎

Philipp Seifert
imToken
6 min readSep 30, 2019

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Welcome to Osaka!

It’s THAT time of the year again: The awesome folks at Ethereum Foundation have been busy and invite builders, investors, crypto twitter — and those who want to become part of it — to the yearly meeting.

This year already in its 6th edition (counting from Devcon 0 in Berlin), the event has become a certain way to meet old friends and build new connections, to exchange ideas and learn.
We checked each and every Devcon side event ourselves and share our favorites below. So, here you go: Our DeFi Guide to Devcon.

Sunday, October 6

Demo time at the mystery box! — Gnosis Safe, Raiden and Trustlines

15:00–18:00

What’s it about?

The old German friends of Gnosis, Raiden and Trustlines give an overview, but also hands-on experience of current project stati.

Why go?

Meet German folks and win prizes. Seriously though, Gnosis Safe seems to be one of the most promising smart contract wallet teams out there — and we do certainly know about that.

Deposit for RSVP here on Kickback (deposit returned only if joined).

The Year of DAOs: Moloch Rises

13:00–18:00

“Moloch whose blood is running money!”

What’s it about?

THE DAO was 2016. It took 3 years to recover, and now they are back: DAOs, the future go-to tool to solve your favorite coordination problem.

Who am I going to meet there?

Founders and afficinados of Moloch DAO, Metacartel and more.

Why go?

Are DAOs DeFi? Maybe not yet. But coordination problems certainly involve money, and Moloch will not stop if we scream ‘DeFi’. Do check out the blog post that motivated Moloch DAO here.

Deposit 10 DAI (= $10) for RSVP here on Kickback (deposit returned only if joined).

Monday ‘DeFi Day’, October 7

Monday is full of DeFi.

Although it’s not DeFi-focused, but to be mentioned: The ukiyo conference is about social impact and involves workshops as well as talks. Please check it out here.

DeFi events, here we go:

Osaka Ethereum Lightning Talks

10:00–18:00

What’s it about?

By the organisers of EDCON and other events — ETHPLANET: A day full of 8 minute talks on everything Ethereum development, use cases and more.

imToken will be there as well :)

Why go?

One day of lightning talks, is basically like watching your favorite Devcon videos on 3x speed. So do register here.

Note: DeFi WTF (see below) is in the same venue.

DEX’s on Ethereum, a night hosted by Kyber, Uniswap, Loopring, and Gnosis

19:00–22:00

What’s it about?

Kyber Network, Uniswap, Loopring, and Gnosis all build DEXs. And all are different: Kyber is more of an aggregator with an interesting token model; Uniswap was a simple idea turned into a pillar of DeFi; Loopring experiments on scaling; Gnosis is building a slow DEX optimizing for good price discovery.

Why go?

Although it doesn’t involve imToken and the Tokenlon DEX, we recommend checking out the meetup. With all that different business models and product focus the meetup won’t be boring at all.

Do register here.

DeFi.WTF

10:00–18:00

What’s it about?

“A modern resurrection of the Greek Pnyx (/nɪks/): a supportive space for open, inclusive, informed, and thoughtful exchanges of ideas, for the practice of the ancient art of asking the right questions to move beyond hype and arrive at knowledge.”

Why go?

Awesome people make awesome events, and trust me, this will be great! I expect the event to be the opposite of a meetup where people want to sell shittokens. So, do register here.

Note: The same venue as the Ethereum Lightning Talks organized by ETHPLANET

Also:

MakerDAO will have a dedicated meetup, but also 6 talks at devcon. So, do go if you can’t get enough of MakerDAO presentation. But seriously, just meeting the folks is probably worth it. Deposit 10 DAI here on Kickback for RSVP.

Web3 business models might not be DeFi, but are closely connected. Do register here if you want to learn about funding, value capture, business models for DApps.

On a side note: I personally recommend to check out the ‘Ethereum Magicians’ tips on business models for web3 here.

Tuesday, October 8

#DeFi Assemble Osaka

18:30–21:00

What’s it about?

0x, Hummingbot, and imToken invite you to join this super team of DeFi projects for an evening of engaging discussion and networking.

Why go?

We aim to give an overview of what’s possible, with 3 companies working on the same tooling. Crypto is unique in enabling collaboration and we hope to inspire more people with our stories.

Do RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/BayCrypto/events/265001134

Devcon. Do go to Devcon! Below I will only focus on events outside of Devcon.

Wednesday, October 9

DeFi Dinner

18:00–21:00

What’s it about?

“We’ll be talking DeFi while enjoying a multi-course meal close to the conference venue.”

Why go?

Well, it’s a dinner and people talk about DeFi, what can go wrong with that?

Tickets might be sold out soon, however presentation requests seem open. Do check it out here.

DeFi Drinks in Osaka

20:00–23:00

What’s it about?

the bZx, 0x, AAVE, Band Protocol, Alice, and Matic teams invite to mingle at the rooftop bar.

Why go?

Again, a mixed group which should attract a nice crowd to mingle and connect. Do check it out here.

Thursday, 10 October

Rebuilding Finance: How to Overcome the First Hurdles in Mass Adoption

18:00–21:00

What’s it about?

ShapeShift, AAVE, Kyber, and MakerDAO advertise their projects. Seriously though, the speakers won’t disappoint: Shapeshift should have good stories as an industry veteran, Kyber Network who have an actually working token model (a rarity) and more!

Why go?

This mix of topics certainly offers something for everyone. Also free drinks and snacks ;) Register here.

More

Check out both OFF Devcon’s and Kickback’s event calendar which also includes parties and non-DeFi.

Find the official Devcon agenda here, and let us know if we missed any DeFi events above!

See you in Osaka!

… or directly on www.token.im

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