2018 Opening Ceremony: Converging with the Ether #BUIDL | ETHDenver

okay thank you all for being here thank you so much thank you for working with us all of today thank you for showing up tonight thank you for working through the snow and the ice on your way here this morning thank you for being here we are really really gracious for your presence today so we are also super super gracious for our sponsors this is a free event there are seven food trucks outside for like 30 straight hours there are there's art there's bean bags there's all this great stuff they're sponsoring all these prizes so for all these people on this slide and all these people on this slide let's give a very very big round of applause it's awesome and we made this kind of an explicit decision to say wait a second let's get more people in here and let's take more sponsors here because we want to make this a really great event for everybody so before I begin something to be aware of both in this opening ceremony and throughout both the day today and tomorrow especially there's a lot of content you guys have experienced that today there's two slides running fifty or two parallel workshops happening fifty workshops total we got sixteen panels we got an opening ceremony closing ceremony there's a lot of content if you're a hacker please think about this balance there's a balance between these three pillars that we think of at East Denver one of them is this learning side this workshop side where you're learning you're actively going to things you're thinking about workshops the second is this kind of building piece where you are actually building things you're hacking you're doing decentralized governance whatever and the third piece is this community piece that's kind of hanging out with people making real connections that kind of thing so you can't do all of these at once but we want you to do all these so as you're here please actively be thinking about this and thinking about hey I don't necessarily need to go to all the presentations or oh I don't necessarily need to be hacking the entire time because you to kind of think about this balance at all times another thing to be aware of is as you can sometimes see here we have some people up there it's gonna get packed sometimes it's tough to see some people are behind pillars etc this is because this is a 1920s car showroom this is not we made the explicit decision not to get a hotel conference room essentially and to choose this space and that's had some issues clearly where we've this thing we had an explosion back there where the the electricity went off and then this thing went down we've had issues with the Wi-Fi all day those kinds of things but we've made that an explicit thing so please be facts flexible with us on that and please this final piece here is co-creating the event together that idea is pretty crucial to the blockchain ecosystem and it's the idea that this is not a one-to-many kind of relationship this is a many-to-many kind of relationship so we are actively all co-creators in the space that we created today in the space that will create tomorrow and the space that will create on Sunday and you as a person are a participant in that and not simply a receiver of that information so please co-create this event with us if you want to do something experimental do it if you want to do something in our experimental do it we want to make it a together experience one other note here before I kind of pass the mic and start rocking and rolling through things is so one if you are so as people who have been here all day know we've been having problems with the Wi-Fi most of today and we are currently still working on it we have two comcast texts here still and as a note for people who are here it would really really help us we're trying we're live-streaming this and so if possible for you to not also be live-streaming it on your you know on your phone or if you have a please like do all of your social media things through your computer and not to kind of take your phone and use that for an additional thing that goes on to our bandwidth so there's to say anything that's streaming related anything that used lots of bandwidth if possible for us especially right now if you could not use those very very helpful the other thing I want to say is so first to all the people who are about to begin speaking I'm going to be emceeing through you guys and we're going to be essentially rocking and rolling we're a lot there's gonna be a lot of there's about 35 different speakers some of which have 10 minutes some of which have 90 seconds you're one of the yo if you're one of those people please I will say hey you're up next or you're up next you're gonna move over to the side here to kind of get ready for your talk let me double check that any other logistics need to be said I don't think so so with that I'm gonna start rocking and rolling this is gonna be about two and a half hours and we are honestly I'm very excited for almost every piece of it um and with that we're gonna start with Kent Parton on the stage right now let's welcome Kent thank you Wow look at all of us this is this is insane everyone who spent time putting this together is incredibly humbled that all of you showed up for this we are going to do everything we can to provide you with an amazing weekend I hope you've you've had fun so far we want this to be memorable and I want you to look back on this is like wow that was really a kind of a landmark moment in my own journey with blockchain and all around an awesome time my name is Kent I started a thorium Denver in 2014 I read about this white paper and I always liked metallic from Bitcoin magazine and it seemed like a cool idea so we we started out as a small community grew from there we'll hear about that shortly first I want to I want to thank a lot of people thank you for coming thank John Pollard where's John there's John this guy it all started in his brain if it were not for this guy right here we would not be here so thank you John and Justin mockup Moskovitz over there Justin this guy probably hasn't slept in like a week his wife is insanely patient to deal with this because he has a newborn and he's put in countless hours so Thank You Justin yeah it seriously it's a lot thank you to Reese landmark thank you to Annabelle and everybody else who's helped and thank you to everybody in a purple shirt who's a volunteer there they're making this they're giving this hackathon a semblance of organization and making things run smoothly and we wouldn't be able to do this without without our volunteers so thank you guys and girls so uh I believe I I don't want to I haven't seen any sort of official stats but I believe this may be the biggest hackathon in the history of the blockchain industry here we are we received a large amount of applications during the process and there is one that really stood out we want to show you this video hey how's it going this is Kevin and this is my application for Denver listen I shouldn't have to say anything I got mad ico skills bro so uh basically uh hold on a second got a phone call on my custom Lambo give me a second hello heard you need a unicorn herder I mean I don't mean to brag but I mean come on I'm your guy Bitcoin here aetherium here you know where I'm at as far as cryptocurrency goes I got more Tron than the 80s bro so this is my video application for eath Denver if you don't accept my application I'd like my money back I mean it's not a big deal cuz I'm rich but I'd like my money back I I don't see I don't see him around I don't think he got accepted what's that so what's that oh he got accepted BTC Dallas I thought he's down in Dallas at the pic point super conference a lot of Lambos down there uh on a serious note though what makes etherium cool is so much more than i cos at the IC oer c20 sort of thing was it was even in the very first use case tutorial of a three and when it was launched and okay it's cool but it's not interesting um I talked briefly on a higher level I think this technology decentralization and a theory and specifically has us has the opportunity to make us closer as humans there's a lot of powers-that-be out there whether it's the government or media in other organizations that have a vested interest in keeping us separated as humans and I don't think this is in our nature and if we can sort of harvest this this power of decentralization this could be a better world sounds a little bit utopian but I think we can make it happy so that said I just wanted to provide some brief history of the community here we've always had a vibrant blockchain community this actually dates back to the early Bitcoin years there was a good Bitcoin meetup here probably started in 2011 a lot of people are really interested in the technology and the the etherium denver meetup started in 2014 unlike maybe you might see on reddit or online bitcoiners and etherion all get together here we're all under the same flag many many are you know they're not mutually exclusive and I think you'll find that online a lot of the differences are are accentuated but that is not the case here in person so you know we started out in a dive bar in a place called globe ville by two big highways I 25 and i-70 usually there'd be like about ten of us sitting around and talking about whether or not this technology was going to work fast forward to to present times the meetup has like 1500 people and what's impressive is we've managed to maintain the same community vibe nothing has really changed except more people show up but people are still interested in getting into this technology and they're just there's something about this this ecosystem that that encourages people to connect with one another and learn it's exciting it's fun and it's gratifying to help others I also have to give a shout out to the core organizers of aetherium Denver Corey and Sasha Sasha were you Sasha wherever you are thank you very much they've been instrumental in helping foster this community over time what is it about about Colorado in Denver and Boulder that makes it a good place for crypto I think part of it goes back to the field Wild West days of mining that actual mining not GPU money there was kind of this independent spirit the Wild West spirit that still prevails today in in Colorado you know we've done some forward-thinking things in terms of you know drug policy and we tend to think a little bit differently here and not be afraid to question the status quo we're in a crucially we're also we're separated from the gravity wells of influence on Wall Street and on Sand Hill Road with BCS we're kind of our own little sphere which is very cool so what does that mean I in terms of living here in Denver and and also just being in a it's the idea of you don't need gatekeepers anymore one of the one of the worst trends I think over the past decade in popular culture has been this idea of like American Idol of like you know you have to go up with these these judges these expert judges and they're gonna decide whether or not you you're good enough to do something and that makes me sick like nobody nobody should be gatekeeping if you have a good idea then the sky is the limit that's how it should be and that's how it is in etherion we saw this with crypto kitties crypto kitties started to eat Waterloo it just does a is a little a little DAP and it blew up and it kind of blew up etherium too but but it was a testament to it to what can be done and as a quick aside I also want to thank the eath Waterloo team who really served as a template for this hackathon the this wouldn't exist without without those guys and they've been they've been extremely helpful in providing advice and you might want to read up on the eath global thing that's just been announced so thank you to them as well so one last thing out that I think sets Colorado apart is this idea the sense of idealism you know making money is great and you know if hey let's get some Lambos and whatever and new business models are cool that's that's awesome but what if we could use this technology to make the world a better place and this sort of sense of idealism I think really influences what we do here in Denver maybe more so than other places but the cool thing is I think this could also be replicated everywhere the etherium ecosystem exists really across the world it's a perfect fit with what makes aetherium unique and and powerful and and world-changing with that I'll hand it over to John for a little bit of more about the community thanks Ken I guess this one's the forward button so converging with the ether so we have made a very concerted effort at showcasing not just the kind of technological culture but the also the overall culture of Colorado every piece of food every piece of music and every piece of art that you'll experience is locally sourced we have artists that are here you can talk to them you can ask them about their work if you haven't seen the art gallery over there we highly suggest that you check it out we'll be talking about proceeds of that art gallery and why that means so much to us here locally we have seven food trucks if you haven't seen them or partaken yet you should remember you have a coin everybody have it right so your coin is actually loaded with all of your meal credits so all you got to do is go out there they'll scan it you eat and go that's all you got to do your snacks the kombucha on tap Valerio where are you there you go you got your kombucha and we have tea from Tico we have I mean so many things to even mention it's great so please explore the Colorado culture by eating our food and guess what it's free so thank you to them for sponsoring and contributing to this event as well the Showcase will continue at the closing ceremonies with a food show and a really really really really big surprise pretty well known bands gonna show up I'm not gonna tell you who just be here around 7 o'clock don't go home ok 7 o'clock the after party starts at 4 we have music DJs all sorts of cool stuff but in the food show we'll be starting at 4 so yeah I should have actually had this light up good night alright let's talk about the culture for a second here so you guys saw our opening video the guy we don't really want that sort of stuff here ok now that's not to say that we all don't have our moments but let me highlight a couple of things that we really want to focus on first off is a contribution mindset think first about what you can contribute to your team or the ecosystem the benefit will come and build cool stuff not hotle Eagle ok build relationships okay you'll notice the badges did you see that there's no last names first name basis we're here to build a community not to actually hand out business cards and hey what can I get out of that guy this is not a conference it's a community gathering this is somewhere to connect bill learn and grow so with that I'm gonna pass it over to Corey our spirit animal Stuart to talk a little bit about this guy there you go thank [Applause] greetings everyone I'm Corey I help run the meetups with Kent here how many of you have learned something today something new how many of you have met someone met a new friend or or had a really good conversation with someone new all right job is done here that was what today was all about next 36 hours are gonna be building and sleep deprivation and a lot of caffeine all over the place so luckily we have plenty of that thank you who can guess like who has an idea of what's on the pink shirt here many of you have seen the staff running around just just call something out Buffalo and yeah okay cool buffer corn you know we we didn't come upon the buff corn it kind of came upon us it it was like like hiking and in on Long speak one day actually these thousands of years ago it was the great unicorn migration and some of them decided to stay behind in Colorado and and mate with fellow quadropod fauna and and the buffa corn came about and they only live on the top of our 53 14,000 foot Peaks now but ever since the unicorns have been showing up on you know shirts in the crypto space they become quite fond of our community so I need help with a name for our buffa corn mascot and I created a channel in the slack buff corn - name and and just people throw out a bunch of names in there and I don't know whichever ones really cool like upload them or whatever and figuring out that works whoever wins gets a custom engraved eath denver hackathon Leger nano s that's purple and there you go part of the buffer corn kind of fairy dust there thank you okay thank you Corey and now up we are going what's up oh one more thing about the buff of corn you can also take it out on a night on the town dress it up a little bit it's sort of like a mullet business in the front party in the back awesome so there's two more things I've been thinking a lot about what aetherium is and to me it feels like this in really Bach chain in general it's starting to kind of feel like a movement it's more than just a technology it has a lot of sort of societal and political and financial implications for all of us it's so pervasive so all-encompassing potentially much like the internet was that it really has a potential to change a lot of things to me it's the new punk rock like I was thinking we should play like Bad Religion or penny wise before the start of this talk because it's the DIY element again it goes back to the idea of not needing any anybody's approval to do this all you need is to build something cool put it out there and if it's if it's meeting the needs of the end users if people like it eight that's all you need and to me that's a pretty empowering thing and just a final note just keep in mind this is your story there's a lot of there's a lot of egos and blockchain a lot of influencers a lot of thought leaders don't don't ever listen to appeals to Authority this is your story you know all you need to do is educate yourself connect with others and and make it happen the blockchain technology has improve the lives of countless people and created awesome careers and and just better the lives of so many people and I think that's going to increase in the future so this is your story and this is hopefully the start of a new chapter for you if they eat Denver hackathon and we're honored to help you write that chapter so have a good weekend thank you [Applause]