Web3 and the flood. Habibi come to Token2049
Monday, 3:05 AM: I have just landed at DxB airport, ready to embark on the Token2049 week where more than 400 events are planned. I applied to the Solana hacker house and spent 2 weeks on the waiting list. Earlier in my transit to Addis, I received an email asking everyone on the waiting list to be at the venue early to have a chance to be let in.
I rushed to my hotel and got a bit of rest so that I could be at the venue early. At 9 AM, I hopped into a taxi and this is how my Token2049 journey began. Stick with me until the end for the highlight.
Day one: Solana Hacker House
I arrived at the venue early and was given a spot. we had breakfast and the keynote. A few hours later a panel by Bryan Jonson discussing longevity. Later, I attended a workshop held by an engineer from the Solana Foundation, where I built my first Solana game. Following that, another engineer from the Solana Foundation spoke about the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol aka CCTP, which enables the transfer of USDC between different blockchains.
Day two: The Dubai Flood & VitaDao
On the second day, I planned to go back to the Solana Hacker house for the Demo day of projects. Unfortunately, due to heavy rain, taxis were hard to find, and I ended up spending most of my day in the metro. The only event I managed to attend was VitaDao at the Museum of the Future which is connected to the metro. They discussed decentralized science and IP NFT. I left the venue earlier than expected due to an approaching storm and headed to Dubai Mall, where I waited for the rain to stop until 8 P.m. It was all flooded outside
Day three: after the flood and web3 summit
As a result of the flood, many services were disrupted. Taxis were hard to find and became expensive, after a long jam I managed to reach Atlantis the Palm for the web3 summit. Despite the low attendance caused by the flood, I met someone working on a banking solution for crypto companies. The journey back to my hotel after the event will be the story for another day.
Day four: Token2024 day one
This was my first tech conference with such a large crowd. It felt like a music festival with all your favorites performing. I was so overwhelmed that I lost myself for a minute, the booths, the talks, and the speakers were top-notch. Balaji spoke with Bryan Johnson about the Network state. There were discussions on bitcoin, meme coins, and the future of payments with Antonio the CEO of Tether. Overall, the event was fantastic.
Day Five: Token2049 Day two
On the fifth day, while still at Madinat Jumeirah, OGs like Gavin Wood, Justin Sun of Tron, the founder of Jupiter etc.. shared their invaluable insights. Here are some videos of the day.
Day Six: Eth Dubai
On the fifth day, I decided to volunteer and help the organizing team. I didn’t participate in many sessions but managed to meet with Antonio of Nethermind and had a good conversation with him.
The last day of Eth Dubai
My first panel of the day was by the OGs of the ZK ecosystem, Vince Yang of ZK.link, Alex of zksync, Sandy Peng of Scroll, Anish Mohammed of Panther Protocol, and Louis of Starknet. I was really happy to hear their point on zk identity, Alex was talking about Zk KYC using a passport biometric ship in the kyc process. Next, there was a talk by the founder of Wallet Connect, a talk of @rahatcodes from Morph labs on how to contribute to open source to get a career in the web3 space
In Summary
Token2049 was wonderful, I met builders, VCs, and overall good people. What stuck with me was the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, I believe this will improve the User experience. From the conversations I had with different devs, I also realized I needed to level up my game to make core contributions. A big thanks to Taira and ET foundation for all the support.
