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DeFi Philly Panels

DeFi Philly Talks

 

Getting Started in DeFi

Compared to Traditional Finance, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) offers nearly 100x better performance concerning transaction fees and times and higher yield and interest rates. DeFi was also the most popular sub-industry of crypto to receive VC funding in Q1’22 – more DeFi projects received funding than NFTs, blockchain gaming, and other sub-categories. Yet, despite this growth over the last 1.5 years after “DeFi Summer,” when DeFi first went mainstream, the user experience of DeFi is still difficult to navigate for the average user, with plenty of room for costly error. 

In this panel, local DeFi super-users talk about emerging opportunities in DeFi and the relevance of the DeFi market as a whole. You’ll learn how to get started in DeFi, navigate through the various pitfalls of the industry, and the overall growth of DeFi’s relevance.

Panelists

  • Michael A. Williams
  • Michael Ghen
  • Drew Mailen
  • John Reusing

 

Bitcoin’s Impact on Finance

In 2009, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, emerged from cyberspace with the promise of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that removed middlemen. Today, nations are adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, and banks all over the United States recognize Bitcoin as an asset. Financial institutions use digital assets as collateral for loans and offer other crypto services to customers. 

 

Local Bitcoiners talk about Bitcoin’s overall impact on the financial system in this panel. You’ll learn about how Bitcoin mining works, how adoption is going, and what the future of Bitcoin in finance might look like. 

 

Panelists

  • Eric Grille
  • Paul Zhaner
  • Matt Rosen
  • TJ Rush

Future of Finance

Blockchain networks serve as a foundation layer for completely novel financial systems. Every existing financial service in the traditional financial system has already been replicated on these permissionless, censorship-resistant, and non-custodial blockchain networks. The DeFi system is now generating completely new financial primitives like Uniswap’s automated market makers and Superfluid’s payment streaming technology. 

 

In this panel, local DeFi entrepreneurs talk about decentralized finance’s current and future state. Hear how new financial services are changing the landscape and giving traditional financial service companies a run for their money. 

 

Panelists

  • Sam Flanmi
  • Nicholas Fett
  • Alyze Sam

 

Crypto Communities

Ethereum gave us a new type of organization, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). The promise of DAOs is demonstrated today across the crypto industry in the form of communities with modernized methods of crypto governance. While many DAOs still rely on centralized organization methods, others have completely decentralized themselves. 

 

In this panel, community development experts discuss the techniques used to create and scale communities using decentralized blockchain technologies. Hear how future communities are taking advantage of NFTs, tokens, and other decentralized technologies to grow themselves into massive, global DAOs.

 

Panelists

  • Patrick Workman
  • Karla Ballard
  • Eric Kaputo
  • Dayshaun Hines

 

NFTs Beyond JPEGs

At this point, most of you have heard about the JPEGs selling for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, but why? What is it about these images that anyone can right-click and save, making them so valuable? And, where is all of this hype surrounding NFTs headed? 

 

In this panel, NFT experts answer these questions and many others related to non-fungible tokens. Learn about the history of JPEGs and get insights into the future of how NFTs can be used beyond just flexing them as profile pictures on Twitter.

 

Panelists

  • Nick Greenawalt
  • Anne Bracegirdle
  • Meghan Cochin
  • Eric Caputo