“No boring panels, no shilling” Paris events season roundup

Nym core team returns from EthCC, Nebular and Build

Author: Nym

August 1, 20236 mins read

Nym core team returns from EthCC, Nebular and Build

Eden Block founder Lior Messika and Nym CEO Harry Halpin at BUILD: Paris. Photo: Lior Messika

Most blockchains and dApps, by virtue of being decentralised, suffer from the same layer-0 vulnerabilities: traffic is entirely exposed, leaking metadata that can be exploited.

The Nym mixnet, however, is a chain-agnostic layer-0 privacy network. This means it can be integrated into any blockchain ecosystem in order to protect peer-to-peer traffic, whether wallets and consensus clients, L2 dApps and L1 chains, or between validators. For this reason, the Nym core team was in Paris for some of Europe’s most important gatherings for the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems.

The Ethereum ecosystem is a Solarpunk ecosystem. And Solarpunks need their Lunarpunk brothers and sisters to ensure the security and refuge offered by the rich depths and shadows of the forest, suggested Nym Devrel Serinko at EthCC. Serinko spoke about what Lunarpunk infrastructures can offer Solarpunk ecosystems, and emphasised that powerful privacy protections are the preconditions, rather than the opposites, to openness and collaboration — before giving a technical breakdown on how to run Ethereum validators over the Nym mixnet.

The Cosmos ecosystem is the home of the Nyx blockchain that operates the Nym mixnet smart contracts. Head of PR and Communications Candice Teo presented on why Nym should be the privacy layer for inter-blockchain communications and the success of Cosmos. Senior DevRel Max Hampshire was at the Cosmos builders summit, Nebular, where he presented how Cosmos projects can build on Nym with the Nym Rust SDK along with a broadcaster for Cosmos chains to use the mixnet. Candice hosted a full day of talks at Nebular and ran a much-needed workshop on improving gender diversity in Web3. And at Build: Paris, CEO Harry Halpin joined a fireside chat with Eden Block founder Lior Messika on the history of the cypherpunk movement, privacy, and where Nym fits in.

Read on for all the juicy details.

BUILD: Paris

As part of the BUILD series between VC Eden Block and Novel Labs, Eden Block founder and Nym investor Lior Messika hosted a fireside chat on privacy with Nym CEO Harry Halpin. To an audience of Builders, the two discussed privacy, mixnet, how Nym came about, and the history of the cypherpunk movement.

EthCC

Serinko at the Status side event during EthCC. Image courtesy of Adrien Thibault (Twitter, Instagram)

Despite the bear market, the Ethereum Community Conference was packed to the brim with participants attending a mixture of technical and non-technical content covering everything from security to open finance and privacy. In fact, there were over 20 sessions focused on privacy, demonstrating a real thirst in Web3 ecosystems to resolve the surveillance economy problems of Web 2.0.

Serinko, developer relations at the Nym core team, presented a well-attended talk at a side event hosted by Status. Delving into the philosophical distinctions between the Solarpunk ecosystem of Ethereum and the anonymity of Lunarpunk, he suggested that the privacy Nym offers bridges the two, and discussed how the Nym mixnet can secure Ethereum validators who are vulnerable to surveillance.

Check out the full video and write-up here.

Serinko also joined the ‘Importance of Privacy and Security of Autonomous Communities’ panel, along with Corey from Logos and Spencer from Spearbit. The wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground but among the talking points, Serinko outlined the difference between projects that merely talk up privacy as part of their marketing hype and those that live it as their ethos. The internet is broken and, in times when surveillance is hegemonic (hint: right now), history shows that healthy communities need anonymity and privacy to protect themselves and progress freely without fear.

Check out the discussion in full here.

Candice speaking at the Cosmos on y va side event at EthCC

Meanwhile: Head of PR and Communications at the Nym core team, Candice Teo, was on stage to illuminate the audience about the importance of cross-chain functionalities for the success of Cosmos and Web3 in general, at the ‘Cosmos on y va’ side event. There, Teo discussed Nym integrations, and how cross-chain interactions can occur on the Nym mixnet, bringing metadata privacy to cross-chain functionality.

Nym can and should be the privacy network layer for inter-blockchain communication, Teo added. Developers will increasingly be conscious of privacy by design as cross-chain transactions drive users and demand, and privacy portability will be key to making this happen. Cross-chain interactions need to be more secure and private, especially for DeFi, and this is where Nym can make it happen. Watch the video here. 👀

Teo also joined other Cosmos projects to chat about key takeaways from EthCC and side events in a live Twitter Spaces session with Akash Network.

Nebular

Max Hampshire presenting at the Nebular event

Cosmos builders and interchain entrepreneurs gathered at the Nebular summit which promised “no boring panels, no shilling” — just technical talks to achieve “Cosmos gigabrain status”. Nym Senior DevRel Max Hampshire delivered on that promise when he gave his Nym + Cosmos: Introduction To Building Privacy-Enhancing Services’ presentation. Click here to view the video and see how easy it is for Cosmos projects to build on Nym with the Nym Rust SDK. Keep your eyes peeled for a full write-up this week.

Nym Head of PR & Comms Candice Teo was also not only in attendance but emcee for day two, as well as running and speaking at a workshop titled ‘Moving the needle for women in Web3 and Cosmos’. There, she discussed the representation of women in Cosmos and next steps to take action and close the gender gap in the space. BCG stats show that Web3 has a gender diversity problem, and the workshop discussed how gender equality is important not only for the philosophy of the ecosystem, but also to envisage a new world in the crypto industry that’s inclusive of the strengths and skills of everyone. The Cosmos Cartel, a collective of women working in Cosmos, crafted a commitment declaration which was launched at Nebular, created for projects in the Cosmos ecosystem to sign.

And that’s a wrap. Look out for deeper dives on these talks and more on this very blog.

Check out the Nym events page for upcoming talks including at Protocol Berg in Berlin, Mainnet 2023 in New York, and Hackers Congress Paralelní Polis in Prague, all this September.