What is Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC)?
The Ethereum Community Conference is counted as the largest annual Ethereum Event happening in Europe. Many concerned people from the blockchain come together for 3 days of discussion and seminars at Maison de la Mutualité, Paris, France. This year it is going to be the 4th edition for the EthCC.
Key Takeaways from previous EthCC
Takeaway #1: We Want to Create a Better World
Anecdotally, a sense of optimism appears to permeate and inform much of the neighborhood. This is something that’s concrete. Participate in a hackathon, Devcon, or another meatspace event, and you can feel it in the air. Lots of people seem to sign up with the Ethereum world for one huge reason: they believe this brand-new decentralized innovation has the power to improve life on our little pale blue dot of a world.
Survey actions show this optimism; the phrase “better world” appears 9 times. Remarkably, equality (or a desire to attend to inequality) appears 20 times. This quest for a more egalitarian society is a significant departure from the Bitcoin community, focusing more exclusively on broadened specific flexibility coming from an alternative to centralized fiat monopoly.
However, the two are not mutually exclusive; cypherpunk and libertarianism are well-represented reactions to “What are 3 or more companies, neighborhoods, social motions and/or ideologies that are (loosely) related to Ethereum?” Numerous Ethereans are proudly carrying the cypherpunk torch that gave rise to decentralized platforms in the first place.
Takeaway #2: There Are Many Schelling Points of Conversations
Ethereum critics frequently argue that the platform is centralized in its discourse due to its developer’s supposed cult status. The survey actions suggest that there’s something very various occurring in the space: engaging conversations focus on lots of thought-leaders (for the absence of a much better term). This is evidenced by the broad selection of responses to the “who are your Ethereum good example (aside from Vitalik)?”.
Given this vast array of respected people, one can presume that practically anyone can influence and guide discussions in Ethereum; it doesn’t require that you’re with the Ethereum Foundation or a large company such as Consensys. It just needs a consistent stream of ingenious thought and well-articulated concepts. (The occasional meme doesn’t harm either).
Takeaway #3: Onboarding and UX Need Improvement
Multiple respondents cited a failure to bring new individuals into the ecosystem as a location for improvement. Ethereum does have a high learning curve for users and designers alike. The previous may have a lot to do with a sub-par UX, which was also a typical problem pointed out in the study.
Why is UX a challenge? It’s not for the absence of incredible designers and front-end designers in the area. The factor comes from the fact that we’re dealing with a completely new paradigm. It goes far beyond the UX obstacles challenged by our web leader forebearers in the mid-’90s. At that time, mainstream users didn’t comprehend the basic homes of TCP/IP and SMTP– but that was OK because their Mosaic/Netscape internet browser showed them interesting things. They might talk in real-time with people in distant places, and their e-mails showed up promptly. No stamps are required. The worth proposal was instinctive and self-evident.
Takeaway #4: We Are Utterly, Utterly Sick Of ICO’s
There are dozens of mentions of ICO’s in the survey, and they’re practically generally negative. Jointly, we appear to believe there is definitely nothing fascinating about ICO’s, and in fact, they can be rather irritating with their meaningless buzz and lack of actual company models.
These 3 upsetting elements of the neighborhood are inextricably looped. Anecdotally, the ICO hype seems to have died down quite a bit, given its peak last summer season. And for builders, this element of the ecosystem could not be any less fascinating or relevant; at ETHDENVER, I didn’t hear a single person talk about crypto costs or ICO’s. Participants of EDCON and ETHBuenosAires most likely had a comparable experience.