Gateway to Cosmos 2023 Closes on a High
Prague, Czech Republic, June 8th, 2023, Chainwire
Conference June 3-5 Sets Stage for Prague Blockchain Week with Record Attendance
Gateway to Cosmos 2023 brought together leading lights of the Web3 world from June 3-5: three days of talks, demonstrations and workshops aimed at shaping the future of Cosmos, the Internet of blockchains.
Europe’s biggest event for cosmonauts – as members of the Cosmos community refer to one another – drew a record 600 in-person attendees from around the globe and provided a high-octane start to Prague Blockchain Week.
The Cosmos Hub is the gateway to a rapidly expanding ecosystem of independent blockchains all interconnected via the ground-breaking IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol.
“Cosmos equals freedom,” said Viktor Fischer, Managing Partner of global venture capital firm RockawayX, the conference organizer, told attendees in his closing keynote “Cosmic Spirits: The World Beyond”. “Bringing real world assets on-chain is what will create the traction.”
Over the three days, attendees were treated to a packed slate of events, with talks from 70+ top-flight speakers, 40+ presentations, 10-panel discussions, and 18 workshops.
The conference showcased the ecosystem’s leading projects and startups, technical roadmap developments, investment trends, and offered a window on adjacent technologies with the potential to advance today’s most exciting blockchain use cases.
The speakers’ roster was a Who’s Who of projects from the Cosmos and IBC communities, including Osmosis Co-Founder Sunny Aggarwal, Sommelier Co-Founder Zaki Manian, Agoric Co-Founder Dean Tribble, and Juno Co-Founder Jake Hartwell, just to name a few. Node Capital’s Amos Meiri, The Block’s Frank Chapparro, and Binance’s Kiril Khomiakov, meanwhile, offered fresh perspectives from beyond Cosmos’s borders.
Many top projects seized the opportunity to make major announcements.
EntryPoint premiered at Gateway with a demonstration of how its Index Tokens can improve accessibility and catalyze liquidity within the Cosmos ecosystem and beyond by providing ETF style access to investors: simple, diversified and passive.
In a keynote address, Dean Tribble, CEO of the developer-focused proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain Agoric, unveiled an upcoming integration with popular crypto wallet Metamask, which will use Agoric’s hardened Javascript technology to link to Cosmos.
Over the three days, attendees had a chance to browse booths in the Cosmos Gateway Expo, talk to project and vendor teams, network with fellow Cosmonauts or visit the oasis of the Neutron Hackers Lounge for a chance to code, chat and chill.
One of the event’s biggest drawing cards was a lively pitch and demo competition on Day Two where some of the most innovative projects in the Cosmos universe right now vied for top honors before a capacity audience.
Chain4Energy, the cleantech software provider co-founded by Greg Sikora, wowed the session with a demonstration of how it enables electric vehicle charging stations to accept crypto payments for power.
Two projects shared first prize: FortyTwo, which seeks to ease entry into the Cosmos ecosystem; and Abstract, a development framework for the creation of scalable interchain applications.
Sam Cassatt, former chief strategy officer at ConsenSys and co-founder of Analog Interchain, told the conference that IBC is the key to taking blockchain mainstream. “Once app chains and L2s are interconnected with IBC, Ethereum is a side chain,” he said.
The event was live-streamed and videos of all the main stage speeches are now available on the Gateway to Cosmos YouTube channel.
About Cosmos
Cosmos Hub is the gateway to a rapidly expanding ecosystem of independent interconnected blockchains built using developer-friendly application components and connected with ground-breaking IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol.
About RockawayX
RockawayX has been investing in early-stage crypto companies and token projects since 2017. In addition to running VC strategies and a credit fund, the firm operates businesses that provide critical services to the digital asset space. Its infrastructure arm runs nodes on leading decentralized networks and it operates a crypto security business that offers smart contract audits and code diligence services to crypto protocols. Rockaway’s web3 venture studio incubates and spins out products that address gaps in web3 infrastructure and its commercial ecosystem.
