Blockchain Presentation at University of Missouri's Trulaske School of Business
I did a presentation on the most impactful movements in Blockchain, to my eye, to a class at the University of Missouri's Trulaske School of Business of the well-regarded Artificial Intelligence and Computing professor J Scott Christianson, whom I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing on my podcast in 2020. At the time I had interviewed almost no one and his jumping on board as a well regarded thought leader in the space jumpstarted my downloads and access to upper echelon interview subjects. Since then his episode has garnered many tens of thousands of downloads on the strength of his insights into AI.
The questions were remarkably well-informed for people that were getting a primer into the space and it’s very clear that these are some exceptionally sharp students. I came an hour and a half early to see for myself his Blockchain presentation game and was taken with how well it resonates with the students such that they were able to absorb difficult topics more swiftly than I’ve seen really any Blockchain instructor able to successfully achieve. That and his affable demeanor makes it readily apparent why he is as sought after as a technical instructor and speaker as he is. I first heard about his AI blog posts at LA Blockchain Week from another conference goer who was well-versed in the space.
My takeaways from the presentation and the questioning that followed were telling indications of where peoples interests lie in the space. I made the presentation at the height of the nonfungible token "NFT" craze so there was a question about the ZED project that allows one to breed virtual horses and race them as well as the large New York art auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, getting into the space.
When I am introduced to people that don't have as a rounded of an understanding of the history of the cryptocurrency space, I like to tell them about how impactful governance is through illustration of my experience. Most telling is the airdrop phenomenon. I have received many dozens of airdrops over the years from projects like a Uniswap, PoolTogether, and many others that are sending hugely valuable tokens to reward early adopters and as an expression of value to the community to not only help these new token recipients trumpet their project but also to bring them into the fold by now having a meaningful stake in the project. The spirit of inclusiveness and reciprocity is the result of the decentralized autonomous organization structure of the DAO's that often make up the organizational governance architecture of these cryptocurrency projects.
To be unfamiliar, this sounds like some type of utopian model that has no way of working in the wild, but many of the projects that, despite being venture funded, are generous in this way have seen their market capitalization and total value locked "TVL" on their platforms ignite. The fact that this airdrop actually benefits the project leadership, despite the dilution, in terms of the strategic decision represents too sizable an uptick after the distribution for it not to be a causal relationship.
Many talented coders have been able to focus 100% of their time and effort on active development as a result of selling a slice of these airdrop proceeds to take care of their living expenses. This is a phenomenon unique to blockchain and speaks to the collaborative spirit of the community that is that the heart of the cryptocurrency movement and inspires the best in people to work together to a common goal and mutual success.
I also spent a good amount of time talking about the growth of decentralized finance and how that has grown as the smart contracts auditing has been more exhaustive and exploits more swiftly closed. As people get more confident with the code they feel more amenable to staking their cryptocurrencies on various projects, which helps the projects to grow as well as helps users to see a high rate of return on the assets they’re placing onto a platform.
I’ve included some slides below to give a more rounded out series of answers to a dozens of questions that the students were kind enough to submit. In my presentation itself I really just touched on the finer points of these to keep the presentation cohesive and the attention rapt. Before my presentation, Evan Blust gave a sensational primer on Ethereum and the technical architecture that goes into the blockchain's consensus mechanism, some seriously heavy lifting done skillfully.
One of the nice aspects of presenting to a Zoom class is that I can see students reactions to a particular slide or point that I’m making. I found a slide that I did on the work of the celebrity Mila Kunis and her NFT project and talking about the celebrities that we follow on a day-to-day basis to have hit home as well.
It’s one thing to talk about a technical topic in classroom on a theoretical level, but another thing entirely to see celebrities we see on the big screen jumping in and making blockchain projects a priority for their production companies. Many of these influencers and taste makers have a wide reaching appeal and when they have decided that something is in vogue then many millions follow because these fans are so invested in the values and performances that are synonymous with these celebrities.
To keep the burners hot on the effort for mass adoption, I've been doing presentations of this variety for local groups--like I did for Meri Birhane's Mastermind Group and, increasingly, to CS classes. Professors of computer science who make presentations or readings on this topic mandatory do their students a particular favor because when these newly minted graduates interview for positions in computer science, being able to speak confidently and intelligently about blockchain topics will not only be well-received, but, oftentimes, they come into the conversation knowing more than a great many CTOs, giving them a higher probability of being hired by demonstrating an ability to be nimble and absorb an understanding of emerging tech.
If you're in Southern California, or have virtual meetings, and would like a presentation to get your executive or technical team up to speed on blockchain tech, DM me and I would be happy to schedule a Calendarly for your group. Here are the presentation slides for those who wanted to glance over the topics in further detail I selected for this group. If you'll be going to LA Blockchain Week this year also reach out! I'm getting a golf group together to play and have some lunch near the convention site.