Tech
The new DC conference for Bitcoin and Ethereum developers is underway
USA, abstract backgrounds, abstract, black, blue color
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Developer conferences for founders and computer scientists, developers and designers of cryptocurrency tokens and blockchain technology are generally found in places like San Francisco, New York, or cities that are technology hubs around the world. While Washington DC may not immediately come to mind as a tech hub for cryptocurrencies, a combination of remote work policies and exhaustion from political conferences has spurred a first-of-its-kind “genesis” conference just for Washington DC developers
So if you are interested in a nice drink of speakers and panels on the technical development of blockchain with political speeches on ice, the first ever ETHDC Conference will be held at Culture House DC tomorrow, May 14, starting at approximately 9:30 am ET. I had the opportunity to speak with Shailee Adinolfi, Business Development Manager at TrustMachines and someone who has been in the blockchain industry in Washington for a long time, who explained how he identified a growing ecosystem of developers in Washington, Virginia, and Maryland that over the course of several years has grown to 300 people.
Adinolfi said: “The Genesis ETHDC conference aims to shine a spotlight on DC-area founders in the crypto space. We formed the DCDAO and the idea for ETHDC came about because we wanted to have an event for ourselves that wasn’t focused on politics where we talked about things like scalability and roll-ups and token standards and abstraction and all the things we want do to grow, grow and succeed in this space and collaborate with each other.
In what many describe as a resurgence of Bitcoin with a renewed interest in developing applications on top of the Bitcoin base layer, TrustMachines is a company focused on Bitcoin development
Bitcoin
ecosystem. Using your own Leather Bitcoin walletAdinolfi explained that the company sees an opportunity for creating Bitcoin applications that could potentially replace the fees that will naturally decrease over time from Bitcoin miners, and therefore provide a replacement for a financial incentive to keep the world’s Bitcoin network safe and sustainable . future.
UniSwap, MetaMaskAND Home they are among the many companies that will be represented. Adinolfi said developers at the conference are trying to “…understand how these companies handled token launches in a decentralized way in a safe space – for what developers, not politicians, want to talk about.”
Of course, it is difficult to ignore the political discussions that may arise with the companies mentioned above, particularly regarding MetaMask and self-custodial wallets. Adolfini described that a self-custodial wallet, “…is like a browser, but where the user owns all the cookies and bookmarks and related data and can easily switch providers and keep all those things intact.”
UniSwap disclosed that it had received a Wells Notice from the SEC and ConsenSys, the developer of the MetaMask wallet, also received a Wells Notice following which the company announced was suing the SEC to defend Ethereum
Ethereum
ecosystem. Both companies are defending themselves from potential regulatory enforcement actions politically and legally and, for now, are clearly still interested in building in the United States. The question is: does the US want blockchain developers to launch tokens or not and under what circumstances. Obviously the question will have to be left to another conference.