Blockchain Seattle September 2018 Wrap Up

Metronome team members recently attended Blockchain Seattle 2018 at the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue, WA. The team was fortunate enough to have multiple speaking opportunities, as well as host a meetup for the Metronome community while there.

The Conference

Blockchain Seattle 2018 hosted talks, breakout sessions, and invited some of the most interesting individuals, teams, and projects in the industry. It was built on the already-strong Seattle blockchain community and was sponsored by some of the biggest names in the industry, such as Dragonchain and Bloq, Inc. Also in attendance were well known industry participants like Cumberland, Perkins Coie, and AUX.

In the opening keynote, Dragonchain’s President, Chris Jones, set the tone for the event — innovation and fidelity to quality would reign supreme here. What ensued was a conference that lived up to its vision and promise.

The Metronome Breakout Session

During the conference, the Metronome team was able to present the breakout session, “Metronome: the Built to Last Cryptocurrency.” In the “Node” auditorium on the third floor, Bloq’s Jordan Kruger and Dariusz Jakubowski presented Metronome to new faces and veteran community members.

In a loose fireside chat format, Jordan and Dariusz discussed Metronome, its launch, and the challenges associated with building/launching an autonomous cryptocurrency. Additionally, they discussed how Metronome was working in the hands of the community and how community driven efforts are what ultimately make Metronome as strong as it is — and what can make it even stronger in the future.

The two opened the floor up to questions. The first focused on self-governance, and how that manifested in Metronome. Dariusz explained that there is no “voting” like other cryptocurrencies. Rather, each owner self-governs through the ability to move MET from one chain to another for whatever reason they wish. The second layer of self-governance comes in the form of Metronome’s autonomous nature — it is not controlled by a foundation, an organization, or even by the authors. It works autonomously and belongs to the community.

“This is why the auditing and testing of Metronome’s contracts before they are deployed on a chain is so important,” Dariusz explained, “I know we’ve said it a lot, but there really is only one chance to get a contract deployment correct with Metronome. No one has special access to the contracts or how they function once launched, and that’s by design.”

A few questions also focused on the cross chain nature aspects of Metronome, how they worked, and if there was any available technical documentation. While the Owner’s Manual does describe how Metronome, cross-chain, and validation works, Jordan and Dariusz explained that they know the community wants more technical documentation (outside of the code on GitHub). For this reason, the contract developers and auditors are working on a more comprehensive technical document for the community. Still in the works, that document will be released when ready.

Wrapping up, Jordan and Dariusz invited everyone to the meetup taking place the next day and spoke with some of the breakout session attendees afterward, Dariusz was also approached multiple times to talk about Metronome during the rest of the conference.

The Metronome Meetup

The last day of the conference, some of the Metronome team hosted a small meetup for those who were still in town. The team offered pizza, soft drinks, and discussions about Metronome. In addition to Jordan and Dariusz, New Alchemy’s CTO Ted Leung and Bloq’s Co-Founder Matthew Roszak attended.

A smaller meetup let the team have more one-on-one time with community members. The team covered a wide range of topics, and one of the most interesting questions was about what happens when the community deploys a new set of contracts on a target chain.

Ted Leung started off this conversation, and the whole team discussed that whoever deploys the contracts will have a few decisions to make, such as at what price should the first Daily Supply Lot on that chain start and how many MET (or fraction of MET) should be added to that chain’s Autonomous Converter Contract (ACC) at deployment. A prediction is that the first Daily Supply Lot on a new target chain will mirror the starting price of other chains (in USD). However, as the contract logic dictates, following the contract deployment the auction will behave as coded autonomously. Another prediction was that the amount of MET added to the ACC will largely depend on MET’s price at the time. The added amount can be as small as 1 Metoshi, as long as it is a non-zero number.

Another question that Ted provided some clarity on was whether or not new chains will be at a “disadvantage” when launched. His answer complemented a thought that Matthew Roszak had during the Chicago Meetup. There may be competition between blockchains to have larger portions of the Metronome global supply reside on their chain — thus, increasing the amount of new minted supply on that chain and the proceeds for those larger auctions would supply the ACC. One of the more apparent reasons a chain would want to do this would be the addition of the converter to a cross chain coin. The competition could be the driving force for the community on that chain to build features in newly deployed contracts to entice owners to move their MET there.

Ultimately, an ACC on a new target chain might take a little longer to fill with supply without an Initial Supply Auction like the original Ethereum deployment had. However, as long as the auction proceeds exceed the 25 basis points send to the ACC both the Proceeds and the Autonomous Converter contracts will have greater supply. Predicting the level of “disadvantage” a chain might have is hard — if not impossible — because of the inability to predict future price, the inability to predict owner behavior, price slippage and arbitrage opportunities associated with the ACC on a given (or multiple) chain(s), and the competition that may arise between chains for greater portions of the global MET supply.

Conclusion

Blockchain Seattle was an excellent opportunity for the Metronome community to meet each other and hear from some of the team members that launched the initial set of contracts. The smaller settings for the breakout session and the meetup allowed for deeper conversations, exploration of worthwhile questions, and greater connections.

The team will let the rest of the community know where the next conference, meetup, AMA, or other engagement opportunity will be soon — though they are open to suggestions!