TezDev2023: What An Experience!

It’s been almost a month since I attended this year’s TezDev 2023 event in Paris and I still carry the enthusiasm and excitement I got from it. Although it’s impossible to put that hype into written words, I wanted to write about my experience and all the things I loved about it.

In case you are not familiar, is short for Tezos Developer Conference. It is a big (probably the biggest) annual event that brings together developers, enthusiasts, and other members of the Tezos ecosystem to meet, share ideas and collaborate on new projects. The conference is usually held in-person (Paris) and it’s a really great way for people in the Tezos community to meet each other and learn about the latest developments in the ecosystem, while renewing the friendship bonds developed through online interaction.

This year, the conference was a one day event so naturally it was pretty packed with a lot of amazing panels, presentations, workshops, etc. Here are the ones that I was able to attend and what I loved about them.

Arthur’s Keynote speech #

One of the first presentations I joined was Arthur Breitman’s keynote speech and just like that I got my mind blown from the get go.

Hearing about “Tezos 2.0”, the “Ultra-high Throughput” rollup and the long term plans for Tezos was stronger than a double espresso to wake you up and get the hype going. If you haven’t listened to the recording yet, stop what you’re doing, and do it now!

1 Million Transactions Per Second (TPS) Demonstration #

Right after Arthur’s presentation and while you were still trying to grasp and discuss the details with the people next to you, the next presentation comes up and it’s none other than the 1 million TPS demonstration presented by Emma Turner from Trilitech and Thomas Letan from Nomadic Labs.

We have been hearing and we kind of knew that Tezos is able to support this mind blowing achievement since the introduction of smart rollups, but seeing it live, visualized and with the “TPS-ometer” on the side was quite surreal. Are you paying attention anon? Things are getting real on Tezos!

Data Availability Solutions on Tezos #

Presented by Andrea Cerone of Trilitech and Francois Thiré of Nomadic Labs, the Data availability solutions presentation that came right after Emma’s presentation was another great source of information around rollups.

Andrea and Francois talked about the difference between Data Availability Committees (DAC), the Data Availability Layer (DAL) and why they are important for unleashing the true potential of the smart rollup technology that Tezos has introduced. Although the recording hasn’t been uploaded yet, you should definitely give it a watch when it gets uploaded on the Tezos YouTube channel and I will make sure to include it here as well.

Connecting with the Tezos Community #

After the data availability solutions presentation, it was time for lunch break and most importantly, time to connect with all the amazing people from the Tezos community!

During the break, I was able to meet people that I have been interacting with online for the last 2-3 years! Community members, builders, developers, and all kinds of Tezos enthusiasts. That feeling, you simply can’t put it into words. It felt like nirvana.

Workshops #

The one hour for lunch break felt like 5 minutes and since I was having such an amazing time I didn’t even realize that the presentations started again and I ended up staying in the workshop and team stands area (2nd floor) to keep connecting.

I was able to meet people from teams like Kord.Fi, Plenty Network, Baking Bad, Madfish, Youves, HomeBase, Mailchain, Nomadic labs, Trilitech, Marigold (and more!) and got to learn about their upcoming developments while also getting swag from most of them (heck yeah!).

Defi - Panel #

It was time for some panel talks and I was really glad that defi was one of the main panel talks that took place. Tezos Defi has a lot of great projects and team members from 4 of them were there live, discussing the state of Defi on Tezos, their approaches to user experience and much more. This panel (along with Vlad’s jokes on stage) was definitely one of the highlights of the event.

The State of L2s in 2023 - Panel #

Patrick McCorry from Arbitrum, Zaki Manian from Cosmos and of course Arthur Breitman from Tezos were the three speakers of this important panel that allowed us to hear the different perspectives and approaches regarding scaling and L2s.

You might think I’m biased but at the end of the panel, I was even more confident on the scaling route and rollup implementation that Tezos has chosen to follow.

All in all, TezDev 2023 was a blast! Beyond the enriching presentations and workshops, the real magic of TezDev lies in the connections I made. In the heartwarming moments of meeting online acquaintances in person and forging new bonds with members of the vibrant Tezos community.

Probably the only thing I would like to see differently for next year, is for the event to last longer. This one day was “packed” with great presentations and workshops and while I was able to follow many of them, I know I missed as many more that were happening in parallel (obviously I’m going to watch all the recordings when they get posted!).

With all that said, I can’t wait for next year’s TezDev and I hope I get to see you all there!