Devcon4 Just Laid the Foundation for the Next Year in Blockchain
The 3 Main Takeaways:
1. 2017–2018 were a PoC for Ethereum; 2019 needs to be the year it matures
2. dApps need a lot more tender love and care.
3. UX/UI will probably lead into solutions for making dApps more usable, and thus bring more blockchain users
Devcon4 has come and gone, and it certainly put Prague on the blockchain map. Somewhere between 4,000–5,000 developers put foot to pavement to attend Ethereum’s core gathering. The event is getting strong reviews from across the industry, providing a critical platform for the people at the center of blockchain’s technical development. It was especially important in highlighting what developers will need to know for 2019.
It was at least somewhat removed from the bustle of other events, where concepts and pitches overshine the building blocks of the industry: the technology itself.
“The conference provided a good opportunity to meet blockchain developers and entrepreneurs, and engage them in meaningful conversations,” thinks Hexa Labs CTO Andrey Dulkin.
Those conversations took place in a really driven atmosphere with a well-organized and well-oiled track arrangement for the entire community. Developers got a real strong overview of where the industry was honed in, and from there some perspective on where it also needed to direct its focus.
“Most importantly, it gave a very good overview of Ethereum’s near-term and mid-term futures,” Andrey added.
“In the scaling efforts there are 4 main directions:
- Plasma, on all its variants. There are 5–10 teams working on that.
- State channels. There are 5–10 teams working on that as well.
- ZKP systems
- Ethereum 2.0 (or Serenity). This is Ethereum’s general direction: Sharding & Capser (PoS). Maybe also stateless clients and fraud-proofs.— David Yakira
“The conference gave a very wide overview of Ethereum’s goals and the next steps on the roadmap,” says Orbs Head of Research David Yakira. “If 2017–2018 were a PoC for Ethereum, proving the general interest in a decentralized/trustless platform for apps, 2019 needs to be the year where this platform comes to maturity.”
According to Orbs Head of Engineering Leonid Beder, the crux of that was “advances in ZK and Serenity (a.k.a. “Ethereum 2.0”). I especially liked the proposal for Ethereum 2.0 randomness using RANDAO mixing and VDFs.”
Ethereum 2.0 was just one of the four main tracks that took up the “scalability” discussion, which will be the center of attention for the foreseeable future. Anyone developing in the blockchain world should continue to perfecting their skills around that.
Ethereum 2.0’s approach focused mainly on a combo of the Casper proof-of-stake protocol and sharding the data over the Ethereum public blockchain.
As for the other approaches, David counted somewhere around half a dozen attending teams focused on each of them: Plasma and its variants; state channels; and ZKP systems.
The focus on networks was clear, and evidently a first step for dealing with the dApp market. However, dApps could have used a little more tender love and care.
“There are many people working on infrastructure, but, unfortunately, there were not enough applications and meaningful use-cases for public blockchains,” said Andrey. “I was hoping to see more projects with actual users and it seems that the industry is not there yet.”
Leonid agreed, adding “There are some very interesting infrastructure projects and philosophies out there.”
The focus on networks was clear, and evidently a first step for dealing with the dApp market. However, dApps could have used a little more tender love and care.
David makes it clear that the most influential Ethereum developers in the community are focused. “The two main concerns are 1) scaling the platform to significant throughput (while maintaining the same level of decentralization) and 2) improving the UX and onboarding process for new users.”
UX/UI will probably lead into solutions for making dApps more usable, and henceforth also the gateway for new users on blockchain and decentralized technologies in general.
As David puts it, “I think there is general enthusiasm in the space and people feel the vision of Web 3.0 is super exciting — probably more than ever.”
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