Devcon #5 - Aya Miyaguchi | The Heart of Ethereum

Welcome to Devcon 6. The first Devcon for Bankless, the conference was a ton of fun and an amazing cultural experience in Bogota, Colombia. Aya Miyaguchi is the executive director of the Ethereum Foundation. She is one of the leaders of Devcon, powering the cultural experience of this monumental conference. ------ 📣 Push | Try the Communication Protocol of Web3 https://bankless.cc/Push ------ 🚀 SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/?utm_source=banklessshowsyt 🎙️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/ ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum ❎ ACROSS | BRIDGE TO LAYER 2 https://bankless.cc/Across 🦁 BRAVE | THE BROWSER NATIVE WALLET https://bankless.cc/Brave 💠 NEXO | CRYPTO FINANCIAL HUB https://bankless.cc/Nexo 🔐 LEDGER | NANO HARDWARE WALLETS https://bankless.cc/Ledger ⚡️FUEL | THE MODULAR EXECUTION LAYER https://bankless.cc/Fuelpod ------ Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:30 Aya at Devcon 4:40 Selecting Cities 6:30 Culture 8:16 Post-Merge Ethereum 10:08 Lifestyle & Expectations 13:30 Looking Forward ------ Resources: Aya https://twitter.com/AyaMiyagotchi ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03David Hoffman?

  Welcome Bankless Nation back to the DevCon 6 experience. In this episode, I'm talking with Aya Miyaguchi, the Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, one of the leaders of DevCon and why DevCon is what I'm calling a cultural experience as much as a tech experience. I asked Aya about the trajectory of Ethereum that she's seen thus far and how all the DevCons have changed and adapted and what really DevCon's role is in Ethereum as it is the place, the meeting place, the ground zero, the epicenter of so much of what goes on in the Ethereum ecosystem and what it's like been working at the EF for so long. So I hope you enjoy this fantastic conversation with Aya Miyaguchi of the Ethereum Foundation, right after we talk to some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. In all of my years in crypto, I've never been hacked,

• 0:48David Hoffman?

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• 1:30David Hoffman?

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• 2:13David Hoffman?

  going to be interested in at least one of them. First, you can buy crypto instantly with credit, debit, or bank transfer. It's also got an advanced trading platform called Nexo Pro. You can also earn interest on your crypto, your Bitcoin, your Ether, or whatever asset you like. It's also got an instant crypto line of credit with as low as 0% APR and a crypto-backed MasterCard. One of those things is probably what you want. So go check out Nexo, the financial hub for the digital age. And let's go ahead and get right into the interview right now. And we are back. And I'm here with Aya Miyaguchi, Director of the EF. Aya, how's DevCon been going for you? Have you been having fun?

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Yes, it's been great. And we kind of promised to make this DevCon the best DevCon ever. And I think team did it. Well, as far as I hear from people, I didn't get to see everything, but it is great energy. And I also hear from new people that they get it. This is Ethereum. So that's the greatest thing to hear.

• 3:11David Hoffman?

  And the thing that I've noticed about DevCon is that it's not a tech conference. I mean, we're talking about tech, we're talking about Ethereum. Ethereum is a bunch of software. But some tech, you know, tech conferences often happen in San Francisco or New York. But we are here in Bogota. And I think if you called DevCon just a tech conference, you're actually not seeing the full picture. So what is DevCon to you if it's more than just a tech conference?

• 3:36Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I myself joined DevCon too for the first time. And just as an attendee before joining Ethereum Foundation, DevCon was the place that I felt Ethereum was different. So that's what I wanted to, like, our team to create. But at the same time, we're bringing DevCon to Bogota this time. And then Bogota is, well, and also said, it's not just Bogota. It is Latin America. And And the combination of like we are supporting all Latin American communities, but also they can inspire people from outside to to fuel energy, like how they can be creative.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  I'm I've been advocating this idea of next billion, they're the next billion users and builders of Ethereum, and then we have to include them. But also, they are pretty creative because they have to. And Ethereum is a necessity for them, and they're building solutions for their own life. So a lot of energy and the vibe and passion and creativity, I want them to inspire the rest of the world. So that's DevCon for me.

• 4:47David Hoffman?

  And what goes into some of the thought process behind how we select a city for DevCon? Here we are in Bogota, Colombia. Last DevCon was in Osaka, Japan. Before that, it was Prague. These are not the typical big conference cities that that people go to. So what are what's some of the thought processes to how we decide where we're going to host these things?

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's there are a lot of criteria we look at. And and then not, you know, we were not successful all the time, we were not perfect. But now, like, we want to have this, like, you know, have people to have different experiences. Like, there are a ton of Ethereum events, right? And there are major events that happens every year, ECC, like East Berlin and all those. What can we provide to the Ethereum people, like something that they haven't experienced yet? So that's one thing. And then after we selected Latin America, you know, there are a couple of candidates.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  For Bogota, the city was very welcoming, but also the venue is, I hope you felt it, venue is amazing. So the venue is also very important. Yeah, and then we started to receive proposals from community members this year. So we we are receiving proposal for next we next DevCon from different communities. And so again, like, if the communities are very passionate and then

• 6:22Speaker 01

  And then, you know, like, they can help us to do organize best DevCon. That's, you know, extra bonus or extra point for us. So, yeah, those are criteria.

• 6:36David Hoffman?

  And Ethereum, of course, it's software, but it's software that's supposed to help humans, help us do the things that we want to do. It's all about culture. And how do you feel, how do you think about culture as it relates to DevCon? Because like we all have all these talks and they're all very technical. But, you know, we're in Bogota, where, again, like I said, we're not in San Francisco. And we're also engaging with the ETH Latam community. What role does culture play in providing the experience here in DevCon?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's very, very important for us to be a supporter as EF, right? I, at the opening ceremony, I spoke about subtraction are one of our principles. And then I definitely want people to see because it's an important message. And we, we, we choose some places, but then like it's not, we're not gonna, we're not doing everything, right? It's we're just being supporter and then community starts building a lot of different things. And then you feel the vibe from that too, but also speaking of the culture, Ethereum culture, like we focus on building and no one is talking about the price of Ether or, you know,

• 7:43Speaker 01

  like it's just that this, this vibe of building together, building solutions together. And then especially in Latin America, that's not, this is not just cool new tech. This is, this is, you know, like necessity for their life. So, like, I love for everyone to feel that through, through this experience. And then also wherever you go, like Ethereum events always have that feeling. But with DevCon, like we, we definitely want to make sure people feel that.

• 8:16David Hoffman?

  And this DevCon is happening at an interesting spot in Ethereum's story. We are a few weeks, six weeks-ish post-merge. And much of Ethereum's early history has been about getting to proof of stake. And now we are having this DevCon where everyone, all the developers, all the community members, are all coming together right after we go through this big transitory period in Ethereum. What do you think the role of DevCon is in like kind of defining eras of Ethereum? How does it help write the Ethereum story?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so obviously we didn't plan it. Luckily, DevCon happened right after the merge and then it was perfect timing. But also, I also said this in my talk, it's like merge was important not just because because of all the technical advancements to the protocol. This giant project was done by a decentralized community. That's like, no one has done that before. And so I think that DevCon is the perfect place to celebrate that part. That's just about the technical part. And then you can really feel, you know, there's so many people outside of EF

• 9:29Speaker 01

  who are involved in the merge and then they can actually be together in person and officially celebrate. So it turned out to be the perfect time, but again, you know, we didn't really predict it. But maybe we got lucky because we were decentralized and then, you know, someone gave us luck.

• 9:52David Hoffman?

  And so, yeah, there is a lot of celebrating going on. It's always, every time I see the people on crypto Twitter or the people that I interview on Bankless that are all around the world, all in the same spot, that is something to celebrate. And everyone chooses how to celebrate in their own unique flavors. Some people go out to dinners, there's a bunch of parties. How are you and other people at the EF celebrating here at DevCon?

• 10:19Speaker 01

  I don't know, like we just like being able to be together is one celebration. And then we just, you know, I received this Panda coin from the researchers. Yeah, but we just are happy being able to be together, be together. You know, like I just was with Vitalik and Danny yesterday and then we kind of like, we did it. Like this, again, like we didn't really do it, like all the, all the community members did it together. But, you know, like we're able to be part of it. That's very exciting and yeah, we, we are also EF getting together at the same location.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Doesn't really happen often, so this is like, we haven't really done. Because DevCon, people have been busy with DevCon and the team has been really busy. So hopefully maybe tomorrow or on Sunday, we have like actual time to celebrate, celebrate.

• 11:16David Hoffman?

  Right, as the organizers of DevCon, you have to, you can't celebrate too soon. You have to wait, wait for it to be over. Did you have any goals coming into DevCon? Any like things that you wanted to see, any experiences you wanted to have? Or what did you want to get done? And now that we're at the end of the conference, we have a few more hours before we actually wrap this thing up. Did you achieve those goals?

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my goal was to feel that Latin American communities have developed, you know, so much. And then to feel that they don't need us anymore, right? And then I think I do feel it that way. I was with all the Latin American community leaders this morning. We just got together with all different countries. They are, they're super cool, but also very organized and then they're running events and hackathons on their own. And then we are just supporter and then I feel like our job is done and they don't need DevCon anymore. So that's, that was my goal and then I do feel it and then I feel like our mission is accomplished.

• 12:17David Hoffman?

  You said it was DevCon too where you first identified that there's something different in Ethereum. And I think that was a little bit emblematic of your talk that you gave about subtraction. How is that subtraction mindset different than what most people would expect? And how is it the right mindset to, to think about Ethereum and what the role is at the EF?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so subtraction is really not about just doing less. It is like subtracting your power so that others can join. And then I think, I just tried to explain it in one word, but then Ethereum actually has it already, right? It was there. That's how Ethereum has attracted so many people. And then EF doesn't have to be perfect, like because others come in and then fill in the role. And then you are doing this podcast to do education. And so that's the power of the Ethereum community. And then subtraction is all about, like you make space for others. But then like you add, we subtract so that others can add.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  But then those who are adding, at some point, maybe they can start subtracting. So like, I'm hoping to see that more, not just from EF, but from others, because I think subtraction is really critical for Ethereum's decentralization.

• 13:38David Hoffman?

  Is it too early to think ahead to DevCon 7?

• 13:42Speaker 01

  A little bit too early. We're discussing. There's strong requests from different communities. Like some communities are very strong. So yeah, I don't know yet. So it's not like I'm hiding it. I don't know yet.

• 13:58David Hoffman?

  Well, I, we have some closing ceremonies we have to get to. So thank you for spending some time with me and just thank you for everything you do at the EF.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 14:08David Hoffman?

  Cheers.