The Web3 Bogotá Experience 🇨🇴

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I applied and got accepted as a Devcon VI Volunteer. This is how I spent 15 days in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. It was a blast, and I won't sugarcoat it 😎👇 A megathread/to-be-a-blog - The Web3 Bogotá Experience 🇨🇴

After arriving on October 5th alone, I spent the first couple of days adapting to the -7h timezone and altitude sickness - "soroche" - headaches, and a lack of oxygen due to the altitude at which Bogotá is located - a whopping 2,640m above sea level.

Luckily, I spent my working hours at @SolanaFndn's @hackerhouses - enjoying local food and working with incredible people from the Solana ecosystem. twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1578056993599901696?s=20&t=66lD_ZJmF44cT7C7uh5I4A

twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1578410438160961537?s=20&t=66lD_ZJmF44cT7C7uh5I4A

While waiting for the whole @3327_io crew to arrive, my next stop was @ETHGlobal's #ETHBogota hackathon at Agora Convention center, 7-9th October. twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1578485921984688129?s=20&t=66lD_ZJmF44cT7C7uh5I4A

At @ETHGlobal, I teamed up with three friends I had met at a previous wbe3 conference, @EthCC, in Paris this year. We spent three days brainstorming, formulating, and finally building @slothyfi - a DeFi yield automation tool.

We implemented a yield strategy generator that used @AutonomyNetwork, @APWineFinance & @Superfluid_HQ under the hood to bring the value of DeFi to newbies and lazy users alike.

Staying up the whole night hacking at a hackathon was a first for me - and I am super glad it was a memory Made in Bogotá™ twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1579008431423623168?s=20&t=66lD_ZJmF44cT7C7uh5I4A

@slothyfi won some @ETHGlobal sponsor prizes! @APWineFinance twitter.com/APWineFinance/status/1579453059624996865?s=20&t=66lD_ZJmF44cT7C7uh5I4A

@AutonomyNetwork twitter.com/AutonomyNetwork/status/1579541753346281475?s=20&t=66lD_ZJmF44cT7C7uh5I4A

@ETHGlobal also had talks and presentations. In my recap, I summarize a talk about smart contract development with Foundry. twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1578607270727888896?s=20&t=66lD_ZJmF44cT7C7uh5I4A

200+ projects were created in 3 days at #ETHBogota 🤯 twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1579125774594215936?s=20&t=nxUxecW-ZUdyr5MHi46Gww

@ETHGlobal ended with the pitches of the leading teams and a happy hour. Off to the next day!

The 10th was packed; during the day, Shelliing Point, @0xPolygon's Polygon Connect & DeFi Bogotá happened. Parties included @Sismo_eth & @APWineFinance's drinks, Polygon Connect After-Party, and more.

I spent most of my time at Polygon Connect due to @mvpworkshop's close cooperation with Polygon. Yes, we are building Polygon infra; check out @trapesys

Listened to a sec talk from @Mudit__Gupta twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1579533629113663488?s=20&t=nxUxecW-ZUdyr5MHi46Gww

Discussed some exciting ideas with @dtyagi & @fabriguespe. Thanks @0xPolygon! After staying a bit at @0xPolygon's After Party, I headed over to a Bogotá district called Chapinero, more specifically Zona Rosa.

@APWineFinance & @Sismo_eth's Relax after the Hacks was exactly what the @slothyfi team needed 🦥 twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1579663257102876672?s=20&t=nxUxecW-ZUdyr5MHi46Gww

First day of Devcon came around! Inside the massive Agora, a convention center with 5 floors, 6000+ people gathered to discuss & build the future of the web. Perfect place to shamelessly plug @mvpworkshop's R&D dept, @3327_io ↓ twitter.com/3327_io/status/1580025455515947008?s=20&t=Pru5glRbArPNgO_BBhwhXg

The day ended with a chill party from @iearnfinance - where the whole of Balkans seems to have gathered 🍻 twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1580013969359900674?s=20&t=Pru5glRbArPNgO_BBhwhXg

Due to being a stage volunteer, I was fated to listen to the talks from the room "River". Below are some of them that I found worth mentioning.

Usually withdrawing from L2s takes a long time, but what if we could increase withdrawal speed with prediction markets? @msv_mahsa talks about working on her research at @Concordia related to @arbitrum's withdrawals. Check out the talk below: archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/fast-and-furious-withdrawals-from-optimistic-rollups/?tab=YouTube

@secparam talked about the usability of ZK in his talk. You can check out my recap thread below, as well as watch the full talk here: archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/scalability-is-boring-privacy-is-dead-zk-proofs-what-are-they-good-for/?tab=YouTube twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1580711907358814208?s=20&t=QOEM1DchFEt7WIvm6zkgDA

Instead of making all talks tech-related, a whole track called "Opportunity & Global Impact" was present at #Devcon. As much as I love hearing and discussing tech ideas, values that we have in web3 is what will ultimately push us, and push our tech forward.

It is extremely important to not stray from what drives us to create Ethereum and its surrounding technologies. @owocki touched upon these topics in his talk, "Ethereum is SolarPunk". I really enjoyed this talk, as it was a change-of-pace for the whole day.

@owocki mentioned the Chypherpunk Manifesto - a short piece written by Eric Hughes back in 1993. Eric discusses privacy and the values of a person who is "chypherpunk" - hitting almost every note of today's web3 community. Eric, are you a time traveler?

Read the Manifesto, it's nice: activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html @owocki's talk: archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/ethereum-is-solarpunk/?tab=YouTube

The day ended with the highly-anticipated @letsraave party. Ignoring the #brownbackpackguy drama, and the enourmous queues (there was a q for a q lol), it was pretty sick. Stayed until they threw us out - a bit of pun intended. twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1582521078676848641?s=20&t=YPqPVidRJWrsFG6nyDMnQg

Day 3 was a bit different. I attended only two talks, and spent the rest of time recovering from rAave while doing #NoTimeToDAI, a treasure hunt which required you to solve puzzles and mathematical problems and find clues all along the five story Agora. Even my 🇯🇵 came in handy🤯

Fun fact: did you know Ethereum testnet names are actual physical metro stations around the world? One of the challenges was to find metro maps around Agora🚇 Morden - London Rinkeby - Stockholm Ropsten - Stockholm Kovan - Singapore Goerli - Berlin Sepolia - Athens

As someone getting into DevRel for the past couple of months, I found @sflamini5 talk super useful. He talked about the Dev and the Rel in DevRel - and how to grow an organic, healthy developer community. @nvitorovic, i'm sure you'll find it useful! archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/building-a-thriving-developer-community/?tab=YouTube

Also visited some friends from @NEARProtocol & @NEARbalkan. They were celebrating their 2nd birthday! twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1580660180450443265?s=20&t=YCWmsoNobBR3aWdyCZ_zlA

The 3rd day of #Devcon ended with @Daivinity's final (?) party. Had a lot of fun; @ihorverkhohliad & I stayed until the end. twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1582552633482833921?s=20&t=YCWmsoNobBR3aWdyCZ_zlA

Final day of #Devcon! Was volunteering again; my stage was filled with people from the Balkans! @3327_io's @m_novitovic & @kuki_mvp told the Devcon attendees How to Stay Up To Date With Web3 Technologies using web3radar.3327.io/ archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/how-to-stay-up-to-date-with-web3-technologies/?tab=YouTube

@dnsvckvc talked about Bosnia and the development of young people from the Balkans with his initiative 🇧🇦 Balkan people are fun - if you're coming to any web3 conference, be sure to find us and ask us for Rakija 😉 archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/balkanize-learn2earn-educating-and-financing-the-next-batch-of-web3-developers-in-the-balkans/?tab=YouTube

The #Devcon closing ceremony was next; after recapping the conference, traditional Colombian singers and dancers visited Agora. Thanks #Devcon, loved the 🇨🇴 vibe! twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1582572842629353473?s=20&t=1xa3um29Q4Eea9QNrkMTOA

I've got to say I skipped Happy Hour and went straight to bed around 6PM. The week was amazing, but also seriously tiring. I had to rest for one more thing! @arbitrum's 1st ever hackathon, happening during the weekend. twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1581688365904121856?s=20&t=1xa3um29Q4Eea9QNrkMTOA

Happy to say the whole week was rounded off with a 3rd place win for best #DeFi! Awesome finish. twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1581794162952708101?s=20&t=1xa3um29Q4Eea9QNrkMTOA

...and that makes it a wrap. So many new connections, new topics discussed, new events & parties attended, new places seen, all in 12 days. I'm still in Bogotá, relaxing and dealing with the expected cough before heading back to 🇷🇸

Thank you for reading so far. I will discuss more about #Devcon when I'm back in Serbia. All in all, 11/10 experience, would recommend. See you at #Devcon 7! twitter.com/leohhhn/status/1581044577875931136?s=20&t=1xa3um29Q4Eea9QNrkMTOA