You might have thought PARSIQ had maxed out our event calendar for the near future. Not only did we head to ETHDenver back in February, but since then we also attended Avalanche Summit, NFTLA, Binance Blockchain Week, and ETHDubai.
We just keep going! We haven’t stopped spreading the word about PARSIQ and its new suite of products. This time, we’ve just gotten back from ETHAmsterdam and DevConnect!
Our head of Business Development, Tom Matta, was present and active at these events, repping the PARSIQ name, meeting numerous projects, and even giving a presentation of his own! Let’s hear a bit about what Tom has to report for us…
What were these events like?
DevConnect and ETHAmsterdam were concurrent events, taking place during Amsterdam blockchain week during the second half of April.
Though separate events, there was obviously a lot of crossover of interest between them.
The goal of DevConnect was — you guessed it! — connecting developers. So, with that event, the focus was on going a bit more in-depth rather than on the size or production of the events.
The end of the DevConnect week was marked by the ETHAmsterdam hackathon, which kicked off by a presentation from Vitalik that Friday night.
It was my first time at both events, and I left very impressed. It was great to see the Ethereum community come together in smaller groups to talk, learn about, and make progress on specific subjects.
As for the venue, it was wonderful! The orgs rented out the Beurs van Berlage, a former stock exchange and massive hall that had a coworking space, chill spaces, meeting rooms, multiple 24–7 coffee stations, and an exhibit floor with sponsors and a crazy amount of swag.
Also, I met the Mysterium team, which has one of the IQ Protocol liquidity pools — it’s always fun to get to better know your partners!
How did you spend your time at these events?
In order to make the most of our time and resources spent going to events and conferences, it is always a good idea to have someone speak or give a presentation. That way, in addition to meeting all of the interesting teams and projects in attendance, you’ve also got a specific reason to be there.
However, because I was a non-technical Business Development person attending a technical conference, this took some homework! Where exactly could I fit in? I found a side event that was focused on Wellness in the Web3 space that was looking for speakers. This caught my attention, and, inspired by the fact that my wife and I have a 10 month old baby girl, I proposed a talk, “Decentralization, Data, and Diapers: Web3 Parents and Crypto Babies.”
Here, I spoke about what it’s like to have a Web3 baby, and how we are managing her ENS names, planning for risk and contingencies (estates / trusts / insurance), buying her FTs and NFTs for fun, and and what it’s like to travel to events with the baby (when both parents work in Web3).
The talk was well received! There were about 50 people in attendance, and from this event I met Kevin Varend, who went to University with PARSIQ co-founder Martin Best, and connected with other technologists, founders, and community members.
Did anything stand out as particularly interesting and inspiring?
Yes! In particular I noted that Crypto is getting more diverse and inclusive. It was great to walk around the events and see more women and hackers from under-represented groups than I have seen in past events.
For example, I met the founder of H.E.R.DAO named Tracey Bowen — H.E.R.DAO is a women led developer DAO championing innovation and diversity. They brought 20 female developers to their first Ethereum hackathon, and teams including the H.E.R.DAO members won multiple hackathon prizes.
Overall, the events had 700 hackers from 56 countries, and 31% were new to Web3! If anyone is thinking about jumping into Web3, it’s not too late! We are still in the early days.
How about PARSIQ and IQ Protocol? What kind of responses did you get from other teams?
In general, there are a lot of people interested in what PARSIQ is working on, with our new suite of products. Everyone definitely takes note of the fact that we’re essentially creating a single-sourced solution for all kinds of data needs. Developers are very excited about the speed of the Tsunami API, and using one API to access both historical data queries and real time transaction info. Everyone wants accurate data fast and Tsunami can deliver.
It was really exciting and encouraging to see this response. I also connected with multiple projects that are interested in testing the Tsunami API. These were Ethereum devs and devs building on Polygon. Polygon announced that they now have 19,000 dApps running on the network, as of April 2022, so the PARSIQ strategic decision of building for Polygon is validated by the surge in market adoption.
As for IQ Protocol, everyone loves the concept of using wrapped expirable versions of NFTs to create a renting economy. Plus the ability to rent out separate aspects of a NFTs core utility to different parties with independent terms and conditions is mind-blowing. A number of the devs that I met already have plans to go to NFT-NYC this summer and will be making it a point to go hear the IQ Protocol presentation.
Ultimately, PARSIQ’s presence at ETHAmsterdam and DevConnect was yet another positive experience of networking with other teams and further establishing PARSIQ’s presence in the Web3 community. We are in it for the long haul! And we’ve already got plans in the works to continue attending Web3 conferences and events in 2022.
So long, Amsterdam!
About PARSIQ
PARSIQ is a full-suite data network for building the backend of all Web3 dApps & protocols. The Tsunami API, which will ship in July 2022, will provide blockchain protocols and their clients (e.g. protocol-oriented dApps) with real-time data and historical data querying abilities.
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