Solana Breakpoint – Conference Summary

About Solana Breakpoint 2022

The first Solana Breakpoint conference took place in 2021, gathering the ecosystem for a first-ever, real-life global celebration. A year later, from November 4th-7th, Solana brought its community together again to learn, build and connect in Lisbon, Portugal.

Builders, enthusiasts, and crypto passionates met to share innovative ideas and accelerate the growth of the blockchain.

Solana Breakpoint in Numbers:

• Over 100-panel discussions and workshops
• Over 70 speakers 
• 40+ side events 
• 3,500+ attendees

#SolanaBreakpoint 2022 is only the beginning. It's time to build…

💻 your project.
🤝 your community.
🌎 the future of the internet.

We'll see you soon. pic.twitter.com/hTW0Dwhgih

— Solana Breakpoint ☀️ SINGAPORE Sept. 20-21, 2024 (@SolanaConf) November 8, 2022

Key Announcements Made During the Conference

Solana x Google Collaboration

Google Cloud is set soon to become a Solana node validator. This implementation will enable users to launch a dedicated Solana node in the Cloud. 

Hey @aeyakovenko 👋

Should we tell our followers the big news?

— Google Cloud (@googlecloud) November 5, 2022

Solana Saga Phone & Solana dApp Store

The phone that is “made for the people” as the Solana mobile team said while announcing the launch of the Solana Saga phone, will be launched in 2023. Still, Solana hasn’t declared any official date for the phone’s purchasing availability. 

The Solana Saga phone will differentiate by its capacity to securely store the private keys of crypto wallets. 

Solana dApp Store aims to discontinue the charge, revenues, and fees. The submission for the Solana dApp Store will open in January 2023. 

Jump  x Solana – Firedancer

Kevin Bowers, Chief Science Officer at Jump Trading, introduced the independent Solana validator client developed by Jump that is in the making.

Solana x Asics Shoe Collaboration

Asics and Solana paired up to create a specially designed shoe collection for the Solana community and not only. 

Image credits: Solana Breakpoint

Solana Breakpoint Agenda

Solana Breakpoint was spread across 4 venues in Lisbon, Portugal. From the 5th until the 7th of November, Solana showcased over 100 workshops and panel discussions that engaged everyone: the builders, the artists, the founders, and the users. For more information about the event’s agenda, check out their website. 

Day 1 Highlights –  5th November  

The first day of Solana Breakpoint hosted the “Welcome to Breakpoint” opening speech. The day continued with 38+ panel talks, such as keynote from Solana’s co-founder, spread across different venues.

Breakpoint 2022: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko gave a recap of  what’s been happening over the last 2-3 years and what’s to come. He named Consensus at the speed of light as his north star, discussed mobile, reliability and resiliency, programmability, performance, and security.

Exploring Solana’s Tooling System

Jacob Creech gave insights about Solana’s tooling system and their focus on improving the user experience. Jacob highlighted Solana’s growth in terms of tools and how the Solana Foundation improved the existing tooling ecosystem.

What’s Next for Crypto Policy?

With Carole House, Former of the White House National Security Council, Marina Markezic, European Crypto Initiative, Miller Whitehouse Levine, DeFi Education Fund, Neeraj Agrawal, Coin Center, and Amira Valliani from Solana Foundation.

This complex talk focused on US and European crypto policy. During this talk, in-depth detail of every policy and its impact on the crypto community was detailed. It concluded with a call to action for the audience to keep maintaining their support towards the crypto community and bring awareness, if possible, to political representatives. 

Day 2 – Highlights 

The second day featured interactive workshops where participants could learn how to build their own ZK app on Solana in a few minutes or understand the hacker houses’ logic, among many other topics.

How to Build Your Own ZK App on Solana in Minutes 

The 2nd day started with a workshop held by Nico Schapeler from Elusiv Privacy who showed the audience how to build their own ZK App on Solana within minutes. Nico outlined that during the workshop, the emphasis was more on the privacy aspect of it. Additionally, Nico explained the importance of privacy during the workshop:

1. More similar UX to Web2, especially for payments. 
2. Protection against bad actors leveraging your information against you.
3. DeFi: Protection against counterparties. 

How To Build an xNFT

Tom Linton and John Rees took the stage for this workshop to discuss building an xNFT. Tom and John explained each step of the process, including an explanation of what an xNFT is during the workshop. 

What’s the Next Big Thing(s) in DeFi
with Daniel Garay from Lulo, Jakob Palmstierna from GSR, Julien Bouteloup from Stake Capital Group, Rupert Barksfield from Amulet, and Mega Septiandara from Nansen.

The panelists discussed the values of DeFi such as decentralization and the diversity which allows anyone to enter DeFi. In terms of what the future holds for DeFi, Jacob outlined the speed and latency of the work and prospects of how it can be improved. 

Day 3 – Highlights 

The final day of SolanaBreakpoint brought some blockchain automation discussions and how Web3 messaging could overcome Web2.

Running Like Clockwork: Blockchain Automation with Nick Garfield from Clockwork

Nick Garfield took the stage to give an overview of the blockchain automation technology. Nick explained his journey with Solana and outlined the perks of using Solana: cheaper, faster, and easier to use. Furthermore, Nick gave an insight of Clockwork’s capabilities and features. 

Smart Messaging: How Web3 Messaging Will Surpass Web 2 with Chris Osborn from Dialect Labs Inc

Chris Osborn took the stage to discuss the recent launches and implementations  Direct Labs have approached recently. During Solana’s week, Direct Labs launched smart messages and outlined the capabilities of Web3 creating experiences that are not feasible in Web2. 

Side Events at Solana Breakpoint

70+ side events took place before, during, and after the conference. There were side events for every interest and taste, from NFT, Women in Web3, Proof of Physical Work, Staking, DeFi Maximalism, hackathons, and many more, taking forms from dinners, happy hours, and parties.  

Image credits: Solana Breakpoint 

Here are a few of the side events that caught our attention:

• MonkeDAO x OpenSea Event 
• Proof of Physical Work by Hivemapper, Helium, and Multicoin Capital teams
• Women in Web 3 by Degenape
• Lisbon Solana NFT meetup 
• The Bear Market Rally – a go-kart race for the Solana ecosystem. 
• Staking Summit 
• DeFi Maximalism

On another note, before Solana Breakpoint, Lisbon also hosted a Web Summit from 2nd-4th November, and Solana Hacker House happened on the 1st of November in the same place: Lisbon. 

Final Thoughts

Besides Solana’s schedule of workshops and panel discussions that engaged and educated the community in various subjects related to the Web3 ecosystem, Solana offered many surprises as well.

NFT Launch, Solana Saga phone announcement, Solana and Asics shoe collection, Google and Solana collab – many projects and launches which will maintain the Solana community to grow fonder and to continue its rising activity.

Solana Breakpoint has been a learning experience and networking opportunity for all participants this year. 

We are excited about what’s next for Solana and can’t wait for next year’s launches!