ETHAmsterdam

The energy around the room was infectious. As soon as you walk into the co-working space, you see hundreds of people hacking away in that vast great hall. It really inspires you to get working on your own projects as soon as you can. 

ETHAmsterdam was a blast. Unfortunately, I didn't book early enough to go to some of the talks. But I was able to get into some cool parties, grab some merch and learn about projects in the crypto and defi space that I wouldn't otherwise have come across. Here are some of them. 

Aave

At every conference, Aave throws a party which they call "Raave". People absolutely love Raave. Conference attendees were talking about it all week, and I know of people who even extended their stay in Amsterdam just so they could attend. I was not one of these people. So while I can't tell you about how amazing the party was, I can tell you more about the protocol. 

Aave is a decentralised lending protocol. It lets users lend or borrow crypto assets without having to go to a centralised intermediary. Aave allows you to earn interest, borrow or build applications on top of major networks. Aave works across 7 networks, including Ethereum, Avalanche and the Polygon Network. 

It is also worth mentioning Aave Grants DAO. This is a program that gives people money in the form of grants to build on top of Aave and improve the ecosystem. They have been giving away $1 million per quarter for the last two quarters. So if you have any ideas about improvements you'd like to see to the protocol, this is a fantastic scheme to look into. 

The Graph

The beauty of the blockchain is that any data you want to see is publicly available and accessible. The problem this creates is that there is a lot of data to work through. The Graph is working on indexing these vast stores of blockchain data and making them easy to query through their API. In simpler terms, The Graph is organising blockchain data to make it easier to transform and use for whatever purpose you need, in your application. 

SkillWallet

Think of SkillWallet as a web3 CV. SkillWallet describes itself as "a self-sovereign, portable ID based on Skills & Contributions – that unlocks native, role-based Governance for Web3 Communities". They are NFT IDs which can use as proof of your skills and reputation. It can be used across different platforms and across different communities. 

So the idea is that you find a project you really like and they give you a role. Let's say you are a community ambassador. As you contribute to the project, SkillWallet allows you to earn in return for the skills & contributions you provide to the project. When you want to get involved in another project or want a bigger role, you can point to your SkillWallet as proof of the things you have already done. 

Tempus

There is a concept in traditional finance called Fixed Income. This asset class is where you buy something like a bond, and that bond pays you a fixed rate of interest (say 2%) every year, for the lifetime of that bond. 

Tempus is bringing that concept of Fixed Income to the very volatile crypto markets. With Tempus, you can fix the yield (return) you will earn on your investment. These returns are lower than what you can earn in other parts of web3, but the advantage is that you fix your yield, unlike certain staking platforms where your returns can vary hugely depending on what is going on with the pool. 

WalletConnect

If you've been crypto long enough, you've been to sites that immediately ask you to connect your crypto wallet. The thing is, there are a lot of different wallets and if you're building a Dapp (a decentralised app), it can be a pain to build integrations with each type of wallet. WalletConnect allows the app you are building to 100 of the major wallets with just a few lines of code. 

In web2, there is a lot out there in terms of frameworks, libraries and APIs that make your life much easier when programming. If your website needs a map, instead of programming one yourself, you can just use the Mapbox API or the Google Maps API. It's great to see some of this infrastructure being built in web3. 

Having infrastructure like WalletConnect will allow more people to hack away and build cool things on the blockchain. 

Conclusion

Sometimes, if you spend too much time on discord or on crypto subreddits, you start to lose faith. You think that crypto is full of people trying to turn $1 into $1 million, in a single day by investing in a random project they know nothing about. For me, ETHAmsterdam was refreshing for me because it was great to see so many trying to build and contribute to the space. It was really inspiring to be around that kind of energy, and I can't wait to attend my next conference very soon.