The 5th edition of the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) has just ended. During 3 days, the event gathered the Ethereum community in Paris around numerous conferences. What to remember about the EthCC [5]
The EthCC [5], the event of the year to celebrate Ethereum
From July 19 to 21, the 5th edition of the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) was held, the largest European event entirely dedicated to Ethereum and its ever-evolving ecosystem.
During these 3 days, many personalities of the cryptocurrency industry spoke on a multitude of topics: the upcoming arrival of The Merger, the development of layer 2 solutions, the theory of Soulbounds tokens (SBTs), decentralized social networks, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), regulation in Europe (MiCA), etc.
Relive the most outstanding speeches of the ETH [5], including the famous Vitalik Buterin’s.
EthCC[5] is kicking off!
– EthCC – Ethereum Community Conference (@EthCC) July 19, 2022
Day 1: Decentralised identities and CAD
The EthCC [5] was kicked off by Kevin Owocki, co-founder of Gitcoin, a platform where blockchain developers can receive payment for working on open-source applications. In particular, he presented the Gitcoin Passport, a digital identity innovation that aims to serve as a building block for an open, borderless internet.
In the same vein, Gilles Fedak, CEO of French startup iExec, presented an exclusive prototype of a new product: a wallet of personal data that mints NFTs from it. These wallets can then be used to identify users when they connect to decentralised applications while maintaining absolute governance and privacy.
Next, Kelsie Nabben, a researcher and PhD student at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, addressed the issue of vulnerabilities and resilience of DAOs. She highlighted the need to discuss what new measures DAOs are taking in response to their changing environment and how algorithms can be governed to deal with threats.
In parallel, Nimrod Talmon, a researcher at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, reported on his work to find effective algorithms that can help society make good joint decisions on DAO scaling issues. “There are solutions, but they are not well understood. The governance tools for CADs are not optimal,” he explained, before unpacking how the struggle between decision flexibility and time constraints is holding back the growth of large CADs.
On the institutional side, Société Générale – Forge co-founder Sylvain Prigent spoke about the union of traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi). He shared an overview of Forge’s token offering, their commitment to security, and their roadmap including the launch of a security token refinancing solution in 2023 through the Maker protocol:
We need to have an exchange for security tokens. Today, it is planned in the framework of the European regulation to open a centralised platform next year. This will be a good first step, but I think there is room for innovation in this space.
Day 2: Adoption is underway
On Day 2, it’s all about the adoption of Web3 and the Ethereum blockchain by the masses and businesses. Makoto Inoue, developer at ENS Domains, opened the floor with an update on the status of Ethereum Name Service.
He shared how top Ethereum domain names are held by celebrities like Jimmy Fallon (fallon.eth), which shows the growing interest in holding valuable domain names.
“The first thing you can do with big Web2 brands is to make sure they have an .eth domain with notoriety”.
A massive adoption of cryptocurrencies will not happen without increased security of digital wallets, but more importantly by simplifying their use. To this end, Ouriel Ohayon, CEO and co-founder of ZenGo, explored the future of cryptocurrency wallets and how they can contribute to their mass adoption. He explained how multi-party computing can be a way to avoid the complexity and difficulties of using private keys.
“Signing a transaction is becoming more and more risky… it’s very difficult to identify the attack vectors you might be exposed to”.
The flagship protocol of Web3 used by the vast majority of decentralised applications, Wallet Connect plays an important role in the democratisation of this universe. Co-founder Pedro Gomes, spoke about what Wallet Connect has achieved in the last 12 months and how the messaging network, Wallet Connect Chat, is fuelling a new era of Web3 connections:
Web2 had many platforms dedicated to online chat. But what about Web3? How can we chat with each other in a Web3 environment? It’s a completely new paradigm on Web3, because you always have to put the users first. Self-sovereignty is extremely important and we have made sure that Wallet Connect Chat preserves these qualities.
To close Day 2, Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave and Lens, outlined a new conception of how our community connects and his vision for rebuilding social networks.
We need to look at social media in a new way, lowering the barrier for developers to build social applications and tools on a composable and decentralised protocol, allowing them to focus on user experience rather than user acquisition.
Day 3: Vitalik Buterin and The Merge
Undoubtedly the most anticipated talk of the EthCC[5], Vitalik Buterin spoke on the status of the Ethereum roadmap and how the community should perceive the upcoming changes by stating:
“Completing the transition [from Ethereum to Proof of Stake] involves deep changes… I don’t just mean deep changes that people who write code have to worry about. I mean deep changes in the way people think about the Ethereum protocol and imagine the possibilities of the Ethereum protocol. “
In fact, the Ethereum blockchain will begin its migration to the Proof of Stake consensus during September 2022 (the date desired by the developers). This operation, called The Merge, is perilous and will change forever the functioning of the blockchain.
“The Ethereum protocol is in the midst of a long and complicated transition, leading [the Ethereum blockchain] to evolve into a system that is becoming much more powerful and robust in many ways. “
On the degree of completion of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin estimates that it will be 55% complete after The Merge. According to him, “we are therefore entering the second half of this great and long vision”.
Vitalik Buterin’s speech ended with the question of quantum computers and the security of Ethereum, something that will obviously not be left out of the developers’ minds when these machines are powerful enough to break the protocol’s cryptographic lock:
“One of the things to remember is the modernization of quantum computers… There’s a good chance they’re coming and once they’re here, we’ll have to move to a different cryptography. This has to be done if we want Ethereum to be secure. “
