We’re back from America – and happy to say the plane germs and jet lag was all worth it.
We assembled eleven team members in New York to smash out Consensus, New York Blockchain Week, and to host our very own Loki SNAppathon! Events and parties aside, one of the biggest highlights was having the majority of our American and Australian teams in the same space, meeting face-to-face for the first time.
Our Consensus booth attracted a lot of attention from both Loki supporters coming up to say “hi”, and from those who had heard of Loki and were keen to learn more.
Loki team members who weren’t taking a turn at the booth socialised with reps from reputable exchanges that shall-not-be-named, Co-Founders, and CEO’s of popular platforms like CoinGecko, My Ether Wallet, and Changelly. It was hugely beneficial to connect, share stories and learn from other projects that have been on a journey similar to ours.
The general attendance was less technical than we were hoping, but Jeff (our lead Lokinet developer) had some great conversations with a few mixnet experts. Kee and some of our other developers also met with a number of contributors from the Monero community and other competitors in the blockchain/onion-routing space.
With so many of the Loki team on the ground in New York, we were able to hit a lot of different events, meetups, talks, and presentations over the week – the Monero and Tor meetups were particular highlights. It was also interesting to hear ZCash’s approach to the relationship between the Electric Coin Company and the ZCash Foundation. And Ryan Taylor from Dash gave a fascinating talk about how he created a company where the network of coin-owners are the shareholders.
Finishing up New York Blockchain Week, we hosted our own Loki SNAppathon: a one-day hackathon at Resobox. It was an intimate event in the heart of the East Village, with mentors guiding contestants to build SNApps during a 6 hour hack. The winning SNApp was an anonymous complaints platform. Second went to a file sharing platform, and third went a 4chan image-board clone SNApp. Spectators rocked up for the final pitches, and networking and beers closed out the event.
America was a blast, but it’s great to be back in the office doing what we do best: putting our heads down and developing. We’re really excited to implement what we learned from New York Blockchain Week, and are appreciative that we work in an industry with talented individuals who are happy to share their knowledge.