RelayNode NYC #10 - July 15
Welcome to RelayNode NYC Area edition! The NYC blockchain ecosystem is growing rapidly. My goal is to harness its energy, expertise, and innovation for the benefit of New Yorkers and provide a weekly curated list of interesting content and upcoming events.
Excited to introduce everyone to my new co-curator: Hsin-Ju Chuang.
RelayNode Links: Sign up | Submit events
RelayNode NYC is curated by:
Advisor @ Paperchain fmr Associate @ Techstars' Blockchain Accelerator, Co-president @ Wharton FinTech
Director of Community & Growth @TQ Tezos, ex-Head of Growth @Stellar/Lightyear, Side Hustle @Dystopia Labs
Things to read
Fundraising
Anchorage, a digital asset custodian for institutions, raised $40M in new funding co-led by Visa and Blockchain Capital. Anchorage’s product offers an alternative to cold storage, a safety measure that typically involves stashing private keys, the password-like strings of letters and numbers that grant ownership of cryptocurrency, in hard-to-reach offline places. Customer want custodians to do more than just safeguard their assets, whether by capturing returns from staking and inflation, or participating in on-chain governance. Chris McCann, GP at Proof of Capital, provides a great primer and market landscape of the digital asset custody market. As a founding member of Libra, Anchorage is well positioned to drive custody solutions for institutions.
Torus raised a $2M seed round led by Multicoin Capital (investment thesis here), with participation from Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Accomplice, Sixth Horizon, and Terminal. Key management is one of the biggest usability constraints in crypto today. Torus offers a key management solution enabling frictionless logins for DApps using OAuth. Mainstream adoption of Web3 will only happen when complexity is abstracted and users don’t realize they are no longer using Web2.
NEAR, a developer-friendly platform for building DApps, raised $12.1M in a Series A led by Metastable and Accomplice, with participation from a small army of high-profile investors, including Pantera, Multicoin, Coinbase Ventures, and Ripple’s Xpring. Usability and scalability are two major problems that have blocked today’s smart contract platforms (such as Ethereum, EOS, and Tron) from achieving mainstream adoption. The NEAR Protocol makes DApps easy to build while achieving global scale by using a novel sharding approach and consensus mechanism called Nightshade.
#DeFi
According to Loan Scan’s Lending Report 2Q 2019 report, the volume of digital assets borrowed via decentralized lending protocols Compound, Dharma, dYdX, and MakerDAO in Q2 2019 increased by 130% QoQ to reach a record of $155M. Loans outstanding grew by 27%, amounting to a total of $117M in Q2 2019.
Although most of the narrative for DeFi is centered around Ethereum, Mohamed Fouda from Token Daily Capital, explains how Bitcoin DeFi applications can be made possible.
While limited counter-party risk and full transaction auditability have been rallying cries for DeFi, history reminds us that risk isn’t eliminated, but transposed. In fact, increasing complexity of products and complacency of market participants can magnify rather than reduce systemic risks. Alex Evans, from Placeholder VC, released a ratings-based model for credit events in MakerDAO. The model can be used in credit risk management applications and for pricing derivatives with state-dependent payoffs such as MKR.
(S?)TOs
The firm has been around for centuries, and the current rules for fundraising for decades. As tech and companies and markets evolve, it’s time for more innovation. Spotify and Slack pursued “Direct Listings” instead of a traditional IPO as a route to the public markets. Jamie McGurk, Operating Partner @ Andreessen Horowitz, has a great post on Direct Listings. For the first time in U.S. history, the SEC has approved for investors to receive a token, rather than shares in a company. Under the Reg A+ framework, Blockstack will conduct a $28M offering through the sale of Stacks Tokens. Reg A+ is intended to allow for companies that are in earlier stages of their development to offer and sell securities to the public, including non-accredited investors. While there was no underwriter or sales agent for the Stacks Tokens, according to the circular, Blockstack spent $2.8M in expenses related to the offering. Is the Reg A+ the pathway for regulated token offerings in the U.S.?
Layer 1
IDEO CoLab announces the launch of its new Startup Studio program for blockchain entrepreneurs. As of late, many layer-1 protocols have launched, stabilized, and are in the process of optimizing tooling, documentation, and their overarching developer experience. However, there is a distinct lack of DApps with significant real-world usage being built on top of these networks. The blockchain industry has now reached the point where human-centered design is desperately needed to help decentralized businesses make the leap from millions of enthusiasts to billions of everyday users.
Events this week:
Presentations: Fluidity-Smart Contract Testing + Zabo- Crypto for any App (Free)
When: Monday, July 15th, 2019, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Where: WeWork Dumbo Heights, 81 Prospect Street, New York, NY
Zabo to talk about connecting devs/users with existing crypto wallets and infrastructure using a single interface. Ethan Wessel, engineer at Fluidity, presents testing Ethereum smart contracts that depend on real-world time.
NYC / XRP: The First Meetup! (Free)
When: Tuesday, July 16, 2019, 7:00–9:00 PM
Where: Tanner Smith's, 204 W 55th St · New York, NY
We invite the community to join us for our first "in person" meetup, held at the one and only Tanner Smith's at 204 W 55th St in Midtown NYC. This will be an informal social gathering, with the intent to provide our community a chance to meet each other in person and discuss things such as the direction in which we want to go, what we can do to contribute and support the greater global #XRP movement, logistics for future meetups and events, etc.
NYC BigApps Blockchain Challenge: Propose a Blockchain Solution (Free)
When: Tue, July 16, 2019, 6:00–8:00 PM
Where: NYC Blockchain Center, 54 W 21St Street, Suite 1001, New York, NY
Do you have an idea for how New York City government agencies could use blockchain? NYC BigApps Blockchain is SecondMuse x NYCEDC’s open innovation challenge that asks startups and entrepreneurs to design meaningful blockchain solutions that will improve the efficiency, security, and transparency of public sector services in New York City. Come learn about the Call for Proposals, the Challenge Areas, meet with government leaders, and connect with fellow innovators from across the city.
Blockchain & Women Tech Founders: Shape the Future! ($6)
When: Wednesday, July 17, 2019 6:30–8:30 PM
Where: R/GA, 450 West 33rd Street 12th floor, New York, NY
Whether you're a VC searching for new investment opportunities in cutting-edge technology or a young woman who's considering entering the STEM fields, here is your invitation to help shape the future. Introducing Nisa Amoils, an accomplished blockchain investor who will talk about her book: WTF Is Happening: Women Tech Founders on the Rise. Nisa will talk about these female pioneers making remarkable strides across a wide range of emerging tech fields--from robotics to virtual reality to drone technology and autonomous flight and how they are receiving only a small fraction of the available funding, an inequity that harms both innovator and investor alike. Along with Nisa there will also be 2 of the featured tech founders… both from our own Women in Blockchain community, Tongtong Gong and Cristina Dolan to briefly talk about their work and inspire others to join them on their path of impacting the future.
When: Thu, July 18, 2019, 6:30–8:30 PM
Where: General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10010
Join us to learn how MythX, a smart contract security platform, and ConsenSys Diligence, a security-focused group, are working together to build, test, audit and secure smarts contracts so what happened in 2016 doesn’t happen ever again because of a vulnerability in the smart contract. They’ll talk about other recent hacks and what they're doing to keep the Ethereum ecosystem secured.
Banking On Blockchain: Exploring Decentralization ($25)
When: Thu, July 18, 2019, 6:30–9:00 PM
Where: General Assembly New York, 10 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010
We are the biggest NYC blockchain community, and we are always striving to improve and bring you the best and the latest events, insights and news on blockchain. Panel speakers include Ian Harvey (Technical lead at MakerDAO), Gal Eldar (Product Lead at AirSwap), and Peter Borovykh (Blockchain Solution Architect at BlockchainDriven).
Workshop: create a token on Stellar network ($5)
When: Thursday, July 18, 2019, 7:00–9:00 PM
Where: The Brass Factory, 185 Wythe Ave F2 · Brooklyn, NY
For developers interested in learning more or building things with Stellar, a decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money in any pair of currencies. At this inaugural meeting, we will be joined by Stellar Development Foundation's Solution Architect, Tomer Weller.
Global Hackathon: Blockchain for Social Impact II (Free)
When: Saturday July 20th - 21st, 2019
Where: Online
We are excited to announce the second, now global edition of the Hackathon "Blockchain for Social Impact" ! We will use our passions, talents and skills to build projects, solving real world problems with deep technological innovations and increase the influence of both Blockchain and Social impact Communities.
Upcoming events
Polkadot Network Topology -- how to connect and run validators (Free)
When: Wednesday, July 24, 2019, 7:00-9:00 PM
Where: Location TBD
Polkadot has many different network access points and supports enterprise style networks like substrate and kusama -- how does it all work? How do Validators stay in sync and how decentralized is and will the network be over time? Blockdaemon CEO Konstantin Richter will talk about the topology of the Polkadot network, decentralization and monitoring.
[Whitepaper Wednesday] Lot49 Mesh Networking (Free)
When: Wednesday, July 24, 2019, 7:00-9:00 PM
Where: Rent24, 25W 39th Street, 14 fl
This week, we’re reading about Lot49, a proposed mesh networking incentive protocol built on top of the Lightning Network.
What is Libra?: A Close Look at Facebook's New Cryptocurrency (Free)
When: Thursday, July 25, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM
Where: 156 5th Ave, 7th Floor
We will be taking a look at Libra, Facebook's cryptocurrency set to launch in 2020. We will dive into the white paper and critical analyses as we seek to understand:
* What is Libra and how does its blockchain differ from existing projects in this pace?
* What are its potential benefits and risks?
* How might widespread adoption impact and/or disrupt the cryptocurrency space as a whole?
Socratic Seminar 94 (Free)
When: Thursday, July 25, 2019, 7:00–9:00 PM
Where: NYU Stern, 44 West 4th Room 1-70, New York, NY
BitDevs is a community for those interested in discussing and participating in the research and development of Bitcoin and related protocols.
Introduction to Decentralized Exchanges (Free)
When: Wednesday, September 18, 2019, 7:00-9:00 PM
Where: 142 W. 57th Street, New York, NY
During this meetup we'll talk about Ethereum, smart contracts and how they are used to build decentralized exchanges. We'll learn about what decentralized exchanges are and how they have the potential to revolutionize how securities are traded. Then we'll take a look at Metro, a project that I have been working on during nights and weekends that attempts to provide a central location to validate and settle trades on the Ethereum network using these three protocols allowing the trading of tokens, debt instruments and options on the blockchain. During this talk we will cover the following technologies: Ethereum, 0x, dYdX, and Dharma.
Mondo.NYC music festival & global music / tech business conference ($99 - $598)
When: Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 4:00 PM – Fri, Oct 18, 2019, 5:00 PM
Where: Williamsburg Hotel, Brooklyn, 96 Wythe Ave., Brooklyn, NY
Mondo.NYC is the first music festival and global business conference focusing on the intersection of emerging music discovery, blockchain and other frontier technologies, and how these new applications and economies will significantly impact both music and tech industries. Emerging artists, innovators and industry insiders will connect and collaborate with fans in a mission to advance human creativity in an ever-changing world.
Notable Conferences
July 18-21 - DWeb Camp (Pescadero, CA)
July 19 - BuildETH (SF)
July 19 - State of Scale Hackathon (LA)
July 24 - Mining Disrupt (Miami)
August 17-18 - BitBlockBoom (Texas)
August 20-29 - Berlin Blockchain Week (Berlin)
September 8-15 - Tel-Aviv Blockchain Week (Tel-Aviv)
September 11-12 - Consensus Asia 2019 (Singapore)
Sep16-18 - Shanghai Blockchain Week
October 8-11 - Devcon 5 (Osaka, Japan)
October 15-16 – Crypto Invest Summit (Los Angeles)
October 15-18 - Mondo (New York City)
October 21-23 - ACM: Advances in Financial Technologies (Zurich)
