TQuorum Sessions

This week, we were joined by Perry Metzger of the Tezos Foundation for a deep, thoughtful look behind some of the inner-workings of Tezos development, namely the evolving philosophy and strategy behind Tezos upgrades and the features included in the latest Tezos upgrade proposal, Granada. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Tezos upgrades, including the answer to the age-old question: how are the names decided for each proposal? You'll also learn more about Perry's thoughts on the features that could occur in the future and just how important the developers' tireless work is to help ensure the continued growth of the network.

With NFTs entering the cultural spotlight more than ever, what kind of opportunities does that create for artists, creators, and brands in the center of culture? Chris Carella joined us to talk about TRUESY, a new NFT platform that aims to create a singularly unique space for creatives and collectors to engage with art and each other. Learn more about Chris Carella's journey to becoming the Product Lead at TRUESY, how it's creating unique opportunities for both artists and collectors, and why Tezos is the blockchain of choice for this unique, curated NFT platform. Stream this Session to learn more about how TRUESY is helping shape a new era of creative culture on Tezos.

How can fans interact with games, comics, and collectibles on Tezos?Stream this TQuorum Session to learn about InterPop, a subsidiary of TQ Tezos composed of a team of passionate creators and developers exploring how blockchain technology can evolve not only how fans interact with collectibles, but also how it unlocks new ways to build community and interact with digital (and even real-world) objects, stories, and games. Brian David-Marshall, InterPop’s President and Publisher, joined us to talk about what the team is working on, including the Emergents TCG and comic series, skills-based games built on Tezos, and plenty more.

This week at TQuorum, Wayne Chang, Founder, and CEO of Spruce Systems deepened the conversation around decentralized and digital identity and how the team is exploring use cases for decentralized identity and verifiable credentials within the Tezos ecosystem’s structure. Stream this Session to learn more about what the future of decentralized identity may look like on Tezos.

This week, Gabriel Alfour, Lead Developer at LIGO & Marigold, Mehdi Bouaziz, Software Engineer at Nomadic Labs, and Arthur Breitman, Early Architect of Tezos, joined a moderated discussion with TQ Tezos’ Co-Founder Jacob Arluck. The panel discussed some of the proposed features of the latest amendment proposal, Edo, and shared some of their hopes for the continued development of Tezos.

TQuorum 2020 officially came to a close last week, and to help us cap off the year, we were joined by Arthur and Kathleen Breitman who offered us a retrospective on some of the developments in the ecosystem this year, and while not making any Tezos predictions, they did share what they were hopeful to see develop next year.

This week, we featured two recent Tezos Community Rewards winners, Claude Barde and Vince Ferraiuolo for a conversation that offered a community-level perspective on the many different aspects of the global tapestry of the Tezos ecosystem. Robert Fontaine, Community Manager at the Tezos Foundation, also touched on the grants process and gave helpful tips to interested developers on how to get started. Stream this Session and get involved with the global Tezos community. We’re excited to see you there!

What might the future of DeFi on Tezos look like? This week’s TQuorum Session offered an exciting glimpse of the potential future of DeFi on Tezos. Hugo Renaudin and Jean-Baptiste Dusseaut, Co-founders of Bender Labs joined TQ Tezos’ Jacob Arluck to discuss their team’s efforts to tackle one of the biggest obstacles to DeFi growth: a lack of on-chain tokens. Stream this Session to check out the exciting developments that Bender Labs is exploring on Tezos.

What excites you most when thinking about the shared vision in the Tezos ecosystem? Check out the answers from two of the newest council members of the Tezos Foundation, Chris Wright and Anil Madhavapeddy.In this Session, we learned about their backgrounds in open-source software development in both academic and commercial sectors and found what advantages they believe Tezos has to become a leader in the industry.Stream this Session to learn how they see their role as council members to function as resources for support and guidance for all Tezos community members.

Curious about the Tezos upgrade process?Arriving off the heels of the Delphi protocol upgrade, we took a look into the plans for implementing upgrades in a more regular cadence. Arthur Breitman described how the shift in the upgrade structure to a “scheduling based on time, as opposed to features, makes more sense.” Stream this Session to learn more about the next chapter in Tezos development.

This Session, hosted in collaboration with ZKProof, featured a presentation by Marco Stronati and Marc Beunardeau from Nomadic Labs. They provided us with a very detailed and informative look into the technical aspects of Sapling, demonstrating how the privacy-preserving protocol uses a process called shielded transactions to allow users anonymity when conducting transactions on the blockchain.Stream this Session to learn more about the emerging privacy infrastructure on Tezos and what this means for the future.

In this Session, TQ Tezos’s Co-founder Jacob Arluck led an in-depth discussion about the architecture of DeFi platforms with Luke Youngblood, Founder, and CEO of Blockscale, and Keefer Taylor, CEO of Tessellated Geometry. Luke mentioned that the current DeFi landscape on Tezos is years ahead of the other networks because of its Proof of Stake consensus layer. Keefer gave a detailed presentation of Harbinger, a self-sustaining price oracle that generates accurate on-chain pricing data.They also gave us a very first glimpse of a new stablecoin on Tezos, Kolibri (or kUSD), which is secured by the Harbinger price oracle and can be minted by any XTZ holder or staker. Users can even use baking rewards to mint kUSD, so, according to Luke “you never lose the value of your underlying Tezos that you’re still holding.”

In this Tezos Town Hall, TQ Tezos’s President and Co-founder Alison Mangiero led a moderated conversation with Robert Fontaine, Community Manager of the Tezos Foundation, and Alexander Liu, Esq. LL.M., Board Member of Tezos Commons. They dove into some of the features of the new community rewards program, which provides an exciting opportunity for developers and community members to be recognized for their contributions towards helping the Tezos ecosystem improve and grow.Alexander also emphasized that “The Tezos ecosystem has a space for everyone.” Even if you don’t have a coding background, there is a place for you to find your value and passion in the Tezos community.Stream this Session to learn how to contribute to the global Tezos ecosystem with your talent.

In this Session, Tim Draper lent his expertise in a moderated conversation with TQ Tezos’s Alison Mangiero, covering the range of potential applications of Tezos that could foster an interconnected global system from financial systems to governance.Stream this Session to learn how Tezos's unique smart contracts and on-chain governance could take us to new frontiers.

Gregory Rocco, Senior Project Manager at TQ Tezos, gave an overview of the landscape of NFTs and introduced the latest release of the tzNFT by the TQ product team. He also offered the community an exclusive look at OpenMinter, an open-source project designed to “enable any user with any level of technical ability to create and manage NFTs” and, eventually, any other token type using the FA2 token standard.

In this Session, the Tezos community voted to hear about the emerging development of decentralized finance (DeFi) on blockchains. Kevin Mehrabi, Founder of USDtz, explained some of the milestones in advancing DeFi on Tezos, including the development of the FA token standard to make interacting with and trading different tokens possible.

During the second Tezos Town Hall of 2020, a panel of experts from the Tezos ecosystem delved into the decision-making process for implementing updates and features onto the protocol, and offered a glimpse into the improvements and expansions to come.

Swiping your credit card, scanning your passport to travel across borders, making an online purchase — in today’s world your identity is not solely yours. In this Session, Wayne Chang, Founder and CEO of Spruce Systems explores how his team is working to shape the future of digital identity and improve security guarantees within the Tezos ecosystem. He delves into the technical processes of digital identity development, how the team is building “standards-based open source products,” and what it means for the evolution of Tezos.

What if you could pay for your next cup of coffee with a mobile app built on Tezos? This Session dives into ecoo, a digital voucher experiment from Papers/AirGap that tokenizes earmarked funds on Tezos for Swiss residents to redeem at local businesses. Papers’ own Alessandro De Carli discusses how the project can help incentivize local economies, the value of building a user-friendly experience, and how this innovative technology could expand the way Tezos is used for transactions.

Curious about staking and baking on Tezos? Members of the newly-formed Kiln consortium break down the importance of baking, the roadmap for new updates, and how to get involved with the project.

How will Tezos be an instrumental component in the future of commerce? In this community-voted Session, Stephane De Baets, President of Elevated Returns, and Scott Bambacigno, VP of Worldwide Sales of AlphaPoint, discuss their work tokenizing over 1 billion dollars worth of real estate in Southeast Asia. In a conversation with Alison Mangiero, TQ Tezos President and Co-Founder, they highlight how digital assets are redefining the concept of ownership and their vision to develop a secondary marketplace with a variety of securities tokenized on Tezos.

During the first Tezos Town Hall of 2020, a panel of experts from the Tezos ecosystem—including Arthur Breitman, early architect of Tezos—break down the current state of the protocol and answer community questions about governance and core development.

In this Session, Ayo Akinyele, CEO & co-founder of Bolt Labs, and Ian Miers, co-founder of Zcash, sit with TQ Tezos’s Jacob Arluck to discuss the importance of improving privacy on blockchains and why this is a necessary step for advancing Tezos.During their conversation, they highlight the problems with centralized payment channel systems and the importance of enabling security for crypto transactions. The group also dives into the experience of developing zkChannels, a chain-agnostic, second-layer protocol solution to preserving user information, which the team plans to implement on Tezos.

Evan Weiss, Founder of the Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA) and Abe Sutherland, Adjunct Professor of the University of Virginia Law School, discuss their work advocating for Proof-of-Stake industry standards and the complexities of taxing staking rewards.

Drew Taylor of Chain of Insight breaks down his zero knowledge “proof of puzzle” oracle, PoP Machine Glow (PoPMG), followed by a Q&A about building crypto puzzle games on Tezos. TQ Tezos’s Jacob Arluck then joins Tyler in a Q&A where they discuss the experience of building on Tezos and what other developers can learn from the projects.

In this Session, camlCase founder Tyler Clark pulls back the curtain on the power of open-source development on Tezos. He debuts Magma, camlCase’s new mobile wallet, and offers a sneak preview of Dexter, a decentralized exchange that is set to launch soon (to see the demos, visit https://youtu.be/T74f8gIEOIY). TQ Tezos’s Jacob Arluck then joins Tyler in a Q&A where they discuss the experience of building on Tezos and what other developers can learn from the projects.

TQ Tezos president and co-founder, Alison Mangiero, chats with Tezos co-founder, Kathleen Breitman, about the current state of the Tezos ecosystem and her active role, how blockchain innovations can be applied to the gaming space, and her latest venture, Coase.