Hello Dev.to Community !
It's been a while since my recent post on the platform. Today I would like to share with you my experience from NBX (Next Block Expo) event, that was organized in Warsaw, Poland. Although this post will not be filled so much with technical or programming knowledge, I just want to share my view on the conference, from my perspective and couple of thoughts that came into my mind.
Introduction
First, let's define what Next Block Expo is ? NBX or Next Block Expo is an cryptocurrency-focused event, where all sorts of people from blockchain-technology gather in one place, where there are lectures for newbies or also more advanced market-participants, projects present their product and many more. And by having said all sorts of people, I mean literally ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE, from investors, businessmen/women, CEOs, Journalists, and even politicians through software-devs, people that have no clue what blockchain actually is, scammers, moon-boiz, marketing guys to companies that had their stands at the event.
What companies/projects where at the event ?
It actually needs to be pointed out, that this NBX-edition was combined together with an AI-Summit event, although there were only a couple of companies, having their stands that were focused on AI particularly, and not being an "AI-company" only because they added an tranding OpenClaw-Bot to aid customer's portfolio.
A lot of the stands were either belonging to B2B-focused companies that help businesses to implement crypto-payments, offering immediate-conversion from crypto to fiat-transfers, off-ramp and on-ramp and this sort of stuff, or exchanges there were BingX, Bybit, ZondaCrypto, Kanga Exchange.
Besides that, what really has thrilled me, is that there were 4 companies or projects that I kept eye on, that were in some-sense delivering or willing to deliver privacy-extending product or they care about privacy.
I will list them out shortly:
- Relocatify - A company that provides help while opening a bank account in Cambodia and purchase of an real-estate in Cambodia. Why Cambodia is somehow related to privacy ? It's because they do not have KYC once you want to purchase/sell crypto.
Their financial system is outside of the CRS-system, so they do not report your financial activity. Does it sound like a safe-heaven for criminals ? Well technically yes, but remember criminals were/are/and unfortunately will exist everywhere but will use different methods for their operation.
For me living in EU, where surveillance grows and privacy already seems as a luxury and one needs to fight for it, usually with miserable outcome.
Sealed - A private messenger, that is using Falcon as key-signature algorithm, that provides quantum-resistant. It's still developing and I had an opportunity to test-out the MVP.
For now it's going to be supporting only text-messages, but the founders say, that they work on implementing features that support images and documents. The messages will be safely stored on blockchain. The blockchain they are going to use is Algorand.Gen6 - It's a blockchain that already has it's collective of Dapps like NCrypt, a private messenger (does not store messages on blockchain and is free to use). There is also RealSeal signs and timestamps your work on-chain. Gen6 Me Identity as an alternative to linktree, but on-chain. And many other products.
Neti - A company that is actually all into blockchain and privacy. They are those guys, who can manage everything from tokenization, ZK-Proofs, Privacy tools to Building a Blockchain from ground up. I asked if they have any intern-program and the lady I talked to, has said that it's limited but they are about to organize hackathons and blockchain-dev community.
My View on freedom and privacy in Europe and Cryptocurrencies in Europe
Although I talked to a lot of cool people from the industry, collected a lot of merch as you can see on the pictures:
Although I talked to a lot of cool people from the industry, collected a lot of merch as you can see on the pictures:
Then one thing is certain for me. When it comes to Europe, privacy of your financial-matters, does not already exist in Europe. And there is no sign of hope to change this trend, as surveillance will only grow and grow in this region, together with stupid regulations taking away your freedom.
The privacy for cryptocurrencies in Europe is gone, because every for transaction even in ATM or in Exchange-Points, will require from you to go through KYC, which I personally hate and find it only as a part of mass-surveillance.
It's actually for me disastrous to see, how cryptocurrencies from technology that was about to threaten the entire monetary system and became only an assets or alternative form of payment.
I think this image explains everything, better than anyone would.
My Personal Experiences
To the event its-self, I'd say I'm disappointed, this time organizers have decided to care more about quantity and not quality of the event, although indeed there were cool projects, this event seemed as a ghost-town for me and the venue was for me not as intuitive as previous one.
The organizers indeed announce a big success, on the event there were more than 2500 people. But the venue for me was a shot in the foot, because of the amount of free space and the actual design of the halls.
I realized also, there is not so much to learn for me from the panels or lectures, but that's was obvious to me and tremendously outraged when one of the organizer in the interview said, that those speeches, panels are rather as an add-on and more it's focused for businesses to be a gateway for new connections and so on.
Is it good ? Is it bad ? I guess as always, depends on the personal perspective. I also did not really like the fact that there has been a separate event for people who speak Ukrainian or Russian.
Don't get me wrong, I do not have anything against any nation, I don't care where are you from and what is your skin color, though organizing an separated event solely for certain language-speaking people, this is for a cause that splits people and separates from each other.
Conclusion: I do not like big places e.g. halls and non-technical talks. It was my last NBX-event attended and will look definitely look for technical events or those that are within my field of interest. So cryptography, privacy, blockchain and cybersecurity.
What about you ?
What have you guys been up to recently ? Have you been building some project or have you been doing something else ? Let me know down in the comments and feel free to share your opinion on any part of my article.
Cheers for reading, till next one :D
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