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RelayNode NYC #1 - May 13

David Gogel

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.

NYC Blockchain Week is finally upon us with many activities and events going on throughout the week.

RelayNode Links: Sign up | Submit events

RelayNode NYC is curated by:

David Gogel
Associate @ Techstars' Blockchain Accelerator fmr Co-president @ Wharton FinTech

Things to read

  • ​FinCEN released guidelines on how the Bank Secrecy Act applies to cryptocurrencies. Katherine Wu’s annotation of the guidance is an informative and entertaining read. The guidance touches on the designation of software wallet providers, multi-signature wallets, decentralized exchanges, other non-custodial venues, and privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies and services. TL;DR; FinCEN tries to separate out categories of applications where developers actively control funds, from applications where the developer has no control.

  • Speaking of control, Vitalik Buterin nails the big trend in app design. It used to be popular to retain as much control as possible, because control meant profits. But control over users' data and digital possessions and activity is rapidly moving from an asset to a liability. The field is now tilted towards Dapps, where devs retain little control.

  • MolochDAO launched in March as a crowdsourced funding initiative to support ethereum infrastructure projects through a decentralized and autonomous grants system. At Ethereal, Ameen Soleimani announced a donation of 1,000 ETH each from Joseph Lubin and Vitalik Buterin, plus 2,000 ETH more from a group of individuals at ConsenSys and the Ethereum Foundation. Simon de la Rouviere explains how by creating clearly defined rules on membership in smart contracts, MolochDAO is a novel way to collectively organize around shared goals.

Events this week:

*NYC Blockchain week is here. Here is a full list of events (compiled by CoinFund) and below is a curated set worth staying on top of.

Building Private, Censorship-Resistant Tech: A Chat With The Co-Founder of Tor ($25)

When: Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 6:30-8:30 PM

Where: 108 West 39th Street, 9th Floor, Suite 900, New York, NY 10018

Roger Dingledine, the Tor Project's co-founder and one of the original developers of Tor, will talk about the history of their project and how they successfully built, implemented, and scaled their censorship-resistant tech across multiple markets IRL.

Oasis Labs NY Blockchain Week Meetup (Free)

When: Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 7:00-9:00 PM

Where: The Whitby Bar, 18 W 56th St · New York, NY

Join the Oasis team—including our CTO Raymond Cheng—for an informal gathering. Learn more about what the Oasis Labs platform, how we're building a privacy-first computing platform using blockchain, and how we're uniquely tackling both scalability and confidentiality.

Stellar at Blockchain Week NYC: An Evening of Stellar and Math (Free)

When: Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 6:00-8:30 PM

Where: National Museum of Mathematics, 11 E 26th St · New York, NY

Come join us at the National Museum of Mathematics on May 14th for an evening of math games, and to take a deeper dive into Stellar with members of the Stellar Development Foundation. Programming will include a talk by founder Jed McCaleb, and breakout sessions led by Director of Community Zac Freund, and Director of Developer Engagement Johnny Goodnow.

Blockchain Gaming in 19: Neon, OpenSea, Dapper,Arcade Distillery, Gods Unchained (Free)

When: Tuesday, May 14, 6:00-8:30 pm

Where: Nomadworks, 1216 Broadway New York, NY 10001

Panel with blockchain gaming projects Neon District, OpenSea, Arcade Distillery, and Dapper Labs.

Examining Crypto-economics Meetup (Free)

When: Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 6:00-10:00 PM

Where: WeWork, 450 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Join the founders of Nervos, Prysm Group, and Livepeer to learn a framework and case studies for cryptoeconomic design.

The Future of Layer2: NYC Edition (Free)

When: Thursday, May 16, 2019, 6:30–9:30 PM

Where: CRYPTO NYC, 25 West 39th Street, New York, NY 10018

New generation scalability protocols will empower dApps to run at high speeds & low costs, will remove limits for smart contracts complexity, and help create the Web3 user experience that is no longer compromised by slow finality. Speakers include Kevin Wang (Co-Founder of Nervos), Jack O’Holleran (Co-Founder & CEO, SKALE Labs), Mo Dong (Co-Founder and CEO of Celer Network), Anurag Arjun (Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer at Matic), Christopher Swenor (Co-founder andCEO of Alacris) and James Dunacan (Co-founder of Abridged).

The Columbia | IBM Blockchain Accelerator Launch Program Demo Day (Free)

When: Friday May 17, 2019, 9:00-12:00 PM

Where: Columbia Journalism School - Jamail Hall (3rd Floor), 2950 Broadway New York NY 10027

Please join us for the culminating event of the LAUNCH Blockchain Accelerator program, showcasing innovative blockchain applications developed by our cohort teams. Each team will present their startup concept and progress made over the 10-week program.

Upcoming events

Startup Boost New York Global Demo Day (Free)

When: Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 6:00–9:00 PM

Where: WeWork Labs, 205 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013, United States

Startup Boost is a global pre-accelerator program with a mission to lead pre-seed stage startups towards Accelerators, Investment, and/or Revenue (AIR). On May 22nd, we are hosting our Global Demo Day.

Notable Conferences