DeFi & The Future of Programmable Money, a one-day virtual conference on March 30, offers something for everyone involved with, or interested in learning about, the bleeding-edge world of decentralized finance. While there’s plenty of talk about crypto whales, a different sea creature is making waves — and a community — for current or aspiring DeFi engineers and developers.
More on that in a moment, but first a bit of necessary housekeeping.
Gas Capped: Attending DeFi &The Future of Programmable Money is free, but you must register here to reserve your seat. The summit is in partnership with Sommelier Finance, a leading crypto project, co-founded by Zaki Manian, and designed to automate decentralized finance trading.
Okay, let’s get back to that other sea beast we mentioned earlier. It’s a 17,950-strong (and growing) community known collectively as LobsterDAO (see what we did there?). One of the most active and engaged DeFi communities, it’s a resource where engineers, developers, founders and builders can discuss, among other things, open source DeFi and programmable money code.
The group describes its purpose as “first and foremost a crypto community for technical and economic research and discussion, with a strong focus on DeFi.”
LobsterDAO began as an open research chat on Telegram’s instant messaging platform in 2018. The space, which remains free from marketing or paid promotions, provides an environment where engineers, developers and founders can discuss their own projects and technology, debate hacks and talk about other web3 topics, projects and apps.
While the DeFi community, in general, stretches the etiquette boundaries associated with traditional finance, LobsterDAO’s crustacean community pushes them hard. Case in point, one of the community’s many sub-channels, Blockchain Lobsters (with 7,734 subscribers), self-describes as “A collection of drunk opinions and stats on crypto and startups.”
Things can get pretty salty down under the sea.
Don’t be misled by this free-wheeling attitude. You’ll likely find that active members of the LobsterDAO community include influential DeFi heavyweights and creators of major crypto protocols.
LobsterDAO gave birth to Curve Finance, and other projects that have collaborated with this community include GearBox, Ambire, CoinList, Icy.tools and DexGuru.
In addition to the main channel, and the aforementioned Blockchain Lobsters, other sub-channels include a main DeFi chat, a DeFi dev chat, a daily newsletter, a job board and two NFT-related chats — NFT Avenue and Seafood Kingdom.
You’ll have the opportunity to learn even more about LobsterDAO at the DeFi &The Future of Programmable Money summit. That’s where you’ll find Ivangbi, builder of narratives at LobsterDAO and Gearbox.
He, along with Michael Egorov (Curve Finance), Vasiliy Shapovalov (LIDO) and Taariq Lewis (Volume) will conduct a session called What is the state of DeFi today and why is it thriving? Bring your questions, get ready for an engaging, informative, experience and be sure to check the day’s agenda.
DeFi & The Future of Programmable Money is free and takes place on March 30. Register here to reserve your seat, and explore this aquatic community where engineers, devs, builders and founders make waves — and change — in the world of DeFi.