Permissionless 2022 – Highlights and Takeaways

It's been a busy week since I got back from Permissionless but – before it’s too late – I wanted to share with you this weekend some quick thoughts about the event and what it meant for Qredo.  

Permissionless is now one of the most anticipated dates in the crypto calendar and this year’s conference, held in Florida’s Palm Beach, brought together many of crypto’s leading lights and a strong set of panels.

For Qredo, it was our first big event since COVID. 

With the success of Qredo’s recent Series A funding round, we now have the resources to aggressively grow our marketing reach and presence. 

Along with key hires in regions like Asia Pacific and Latin America, conferences are an important way to raise Qredo’s profile, build new relationships, and be part of the conversation. 

The crypto revolution is going strong 

 Over 7,000 attended Permissionless and it was impressive to see the levels of enthusiasm, talent, and energy galvanizing the crypto space. 

This was demonstrated by the slew of new product announcements during the event — and aptly summarized by a16z’s Chris Dixon who observed last week that we are entering the “the golden era of Web3.”

Through both my personal and professional network, I know this market downturn has been hard for many. 

But, after Permissionless, I am more confident than ever about the ability of this still emerging industry to weather the chill of any Crypto Winter. 

Indeed, for projects like Qredo that have healthy war chests and long-term vision, it is an opportunity to grow and thrive. 

Recognition of Qredo goes from strength to strength

During the event it became clear that awareness of Qredo’s unique offering is high – much higher than we realized. 

I knew Qredo was making good headway because I can see the relationships with institutions and partners that we’ve been quietly building over the last six months. 

However, we were all blown away by the traffic to our booth. 

Located next to crypto giants like Ledger, Coinbase and Visa, Qredo’s booth attracted more visitors and was constantly busy. Indeed, by the end of the event, Josh and I had lost our voices because so many people wanted to come and talk to us! 

As well as praise for Qredo’s decentralized MPC custody and governance, there is growing recognition that our integration with MetaMask Institutional is changing the way that institutions think about secure, compliant, and scalable access to Web3.

There is also excitement from future customers and partners around our roadmap.  

Through the hard yards of painstaking, customer-focused development & testing, Qredo is building a foundational architecture that will support tokenized assets, not just through the next cycle, but for decades to come.

Permissionless Panel highlights

There were a number of other conference takeaways that stood out for myself and the team: 

1. Stablecoins remain crypto's killer app

In Qredo’s Digital Asset Predictions for 2022, we said that we believe 2022 will see increasing regulatory clarity and the emergence of a new generation of stablecoin issuers. 

We couldn’t have predicted how important the topic has rapidly become in recent weeks.

Picking apart the wreckage of Luna, the Permissionless stablecoin panel put the risks and opportunities of this nascent sector in focus — even in the absence of Terra Luna founder Do Kwon. 

Castle Island Ventures’ Nic Carter described Terra’s algorithmic design as “reckless financial engineering” and claimed its downfall was predictable. But he maintained that there is no doubt that stablecoins remain "crypto’s killer app".

From there, the conversation lilted towards risk management, with Visa’s head of CBDC Catherine Gu emphasizing the importance of understanding "how stablecoin reserves are audited and who models and tests their systemic risks."

This sets the tone nicely for the launch of Qredo’s Stablecoin Mint, due in late Q2 2022, which will bring a whole new model to stablecoin issuance. Watch this space.

2. L222 is happening

L222 is proving to be more than just a meme. Legions of Layer 2 protocols were present at  Permissionless — including Synthetix, Galleon DAO, and of course Qredo.

This reflects a booming Layer 2 ecosystem and vindicates Qredo’s approach to solving blockchain scalability.

Ethereum Layer 2s got a special boost as researcher Justin Drake revealed that the blockchain's biggest technical milestone yet could soon be upon us. He said at the conference that the “stars are aligned” for the Merge to happen as early as August, and this was later confirmed by Buterin.

Aside from enabling the rollout of shard chains, this long-awaited Ethereum upgrade will set the technical foundation for Layer 2 protocols to more efficiently interact with the underlying chain.

3. Self-custody is an evolving concept

In the DeFi panel (watch below), ShapeShift's Erik Voorhees addressed the elephant in the room; saying that although "self-custody is important; most people will not self-custody."

Josh Goodbody then took this opportunity to cover the benefits of Qredo's self-custody. He explained how Qredo's vision makes self-custody accessible to anyone, and will provide some of the assurances of traditional finance; such as allowing multiple insurance offerings to be layered on top.

This theme of self-custody and self-sovereignty recurred throughout the conference, and the ideological side was later covered in a dedicated panel on "sovereign individuals and the rise of crypto natives."

📺 PANEL RECORDING: DeFi — The Financial Backbone of the New Economy

Josh Goodbody, Qredo COO, took part in one of Permissionless’s most watched panels on the outlook for DeFi. Also on the panel: Joe Hoffend (Foundry), Konstantin Richter (Blockdaemon), Erik Voorhees (ShapeShift), and moderator Jason Yanowitz (Blockworks):

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