It seems like the team at PARSIQ has been traveling all over the world, attending the top blockchain conferences and events the year has had to offer.
…and it seems that way, because it’s true!
This year alone we’ve attended:
- Los Angeles | NFT LA
- Dubai | ETHDubai & Binanace Blockchain Week
- Amsterdam | ETHAmsterdam & DevConnect
- London | The FCA CryptoSprint
- Barcelona | Avalanche Summit
- Denver | ETHDenver
- Toronto2Miami | Gumball 3000
- Palm Beach | Permissionless
Our work has been paying off! Together, these events have created greater awareness of our brand, broadened our network, and helped secure clients.
Adding to this list, last week PARSIQ headed to Austin, Texas to attend two super exciting crypto events, NFT Connect and Consensus.
David Siddock (Business Development) and Francis Foster (Communications Lead) were representing PARSIQ at these events, and from their report, their visits were well worth the time. Let’s hear a little bit about what they had to say when asked about their time at NFT Connect and Consensus…
PARSIQ: First of all, thanks for taking the time to update our community on your time in Austin! From the sounds of things, you had a great trip. Can you begin by giving an overview of your impression of both Consensus and NFT Connect?What did you think? How’d it go?
David: Sure! This was my first time at Consensus. I have to say, Austin is the perfect city to host an event like this. I loved the size of the convention. It was huge! And there was a lot of space for companies to set up their booths. It’s always nice to come to an event that you can tell was well planned, it makes it so much easier to enjoy speaking to the projects that are there.
Francis: I totally agree with David, especially about the size. Consensus was at a scale I’ve never seen before in crypto. With hundreds of booths and many institutional household names in attendance like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and Deloitte, this felt like a glimpse into the future.
NFT Connect was a perfect compliment to Consensus, having a much more intimate feel at times. For example, the NFT Connect team invited us to join a panel on GameFi and the future of NFTs. This was a smaller event, but it had great spirit due to the passion and family-feel of the organizers and core participants.
Between the two events, we were working from morning until long into the night in order to cover the huge amount of ground.
David: Yes, it was an amazing experience to speak at NFT Connect. The topic of the panel was Metaverse Gaming which suited me and my interests perfectly.
PARSIQ: That’s wonderful to hear! You’re making me jealous that we all couldn’t be there with you. Let’s see if you can heighten my FOMO even more: what were some of the best presentations or events you attended?
David: Well, if you want me to make you even more jealous, I gotta say that Algorand’s AVM event was great! I loved the live music they had (the organizer really chose an amazing band!). And not only that, but the event was also coupled with talks about the future of Web3… and delicious food and drinks were involved as well. Who’s gonna say no to all that?!
Really, though, so many of the panels were great. So many skilled speakers were there, all very knowledgeable and had high hopes for the future of Web3 and NFTs.
Francis: Absolutely. To echo a bit of what David is saying here, I really enjoyed the more ground talks about Web3. It’s in these contexts that you get to hear all about the challenges the space is facing and the solutions required before we can think about mass adoption.
One thing I liked was the term “Web2.5,” meaning that not everything needs to be decentralized — we need to think critically when building and ensure that we are not dropping components of Web2 which serve useful functions.
Really cool stuff to see, how people are all problem solving with so much excitement and curiosity.
PARSIQ: Nice, Web2.5 — sounds like that may have a lot of resonance with PARSIQ’s idea to embrace a kind of “hybrid” model, keeping some parts of our approach centralized and other parts decentralized. In fact, Tom Tirman (CEO) recently talked a little bit about this in an AMA. Does that sound right?
Francis: Yes, I definitely think that’s right. Web2.5 has a lot in common with PARSIQ’s overall approach, which is probably why I found it so exciting to hear others talking about it.
I like the Web2.5 idea a lot. Too often, it’s so easy to get lost navelgazing and become too focused with networks and ecosystems. But really, the users of the future don’t need (or may not even want) to know all the details about, for example, what blockchain a game is operating on, just as they don’t know the programming language of Instagram.
Even simple things like wallet creation need better education and seamless UI/UX in order to grow the space. This is what our ‘hybrid’ approach is about, and what the idea of Web2.5 was about as well.
PARSIQ: That is super cool to hear that the approach PARSIQ is already taking is what the next generation of programmers are talking about.
David: Yea, and if I could just add something further. It’s really worth noting the types of people and institutions getting involved. Francis already mentioned that groups like Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and Deloitte had a presence — and it’s really true! Banks are getting involved and established Web2 companies are getting involved in blockchain.
Our hybrid approach (or Web2.5, if you want to call it that) is going to take us far into this industry. Despite the shrinking market cap for the moment, the space is really growing. Don’t take the red candles as an indicator as to where we’re headed. We are still BUIDLing!
PARSIQ: Wow. That’s awesome! You hear about ‘banks and institutions’ getting involved in blockchain and crypto, but so often it’s from a distance, like on Twitter or something. Exciting to hear that (as you’ve seen first hand), these groups are even attending the conferences and starting to establish themselves as players in this arena.
Francis: Haha, right?! It was great to see. The traditional financial services are out in force. Everything from accountants, compliance, law firms, market makers… the institutions are coming!
Especially interesting to see all this given the timing of this conference, with the bear market. What it demonstrated for me was that we’re at a stage that is crystallizing a direction for crypto as a technology for solving real world problems, rather than just being a series of hype cycles.
Projects, builders, and institutions are rising to this challenge. And from the conversations I had, many see PARSIQ as a key component of their development!
PARSIQ: Right. The hype cycles can be exciting, but they really are a distraction from the aims and vision of long-term oriented projects, like ourselves. –And as we are even currently seeing, they can cause a lot of trouble and pain for people. Great to hear that you were both able to catch a glimpse of a future that isn’t trapped in an endless repetition of that cycle.
Also, thank you for the excellent transition! Because I was just about to ask: How was PARSIQ received during your time in Austin?
David: I just have to say, Wow. People were super responsive to the Tsunami API! Pitching a product has basically never been easier. When I talk about it to other teams and developers, they get it right away and want to set up a meeting to discuss ASAP.
I spoke with so many projects that could use PARSIQ. It’s up to the BD team to come up with use cases on the fly and sell them the idea that they need the product. Which — again — is super easy with the Tsunami API and Data Lakes, because as a dev might say; “Building a scalable blockchain data solution before building our own project!? Ain’t nobody got time for dat.”
Francis: Haha! It’s true. While my expertise isn’t sales, I still had a lot of opportunities to talk about PARSIQ and the Tsunami API. At a certain point, I most often had to pass the conversations off to David, or connect them with others on our team. But what I can say is that the ease of understanding of what we are doing was impressive. I’m not as knowledgeable about the tech side of things as some people are on our team, but I was still able to convey the main points with ease.
What we are building really piques the interest of other teams, because of how versatile it is. And not just that, it is something that basically any project you talk to could use in some way. It’s easy to see that we’re onto something exciting here!
