EthCC 2024: User-Owned AI Takes Center Stage

Last week, the Ethereum community gathered in Brussels for EthCC, the largest annual European Ethereum event focused on technology and community. Usually held in Paris, this year’s event moved to Brussels due to the Summer Olympics. Despite initial mixed reactions to the change in location, the Web3 community descended on the Belgian capital for an intense week of conferences, networking, and learning. The NEAR ecosystem was front and center, touting the same vision it has held since its inception: building a world where all people control their own assets, data, and power of governance.

The week kicked off with NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin delivering a keynote at the Open Source AI Summit titled “Why the World Needs User-Owned AI.” Illia presented the case for investing in open-source, User-Owned AI, emphasizing the importance of collaboration in proactively managing risk, improving user safety, and formally verifying code. He stressed that all data used in training AI models must be open-source to ensure transparency, unpack potential biases, and debug issues effectively.

Later in the week, Illia delivered a keynote presentation on the NEAR AI Hub and AI Developer concept. His talk sparked considerable interest, particularly regarding the transformative potential of Developer AI. The audience was captivated by the vision of a system where individuals, regardless of their technical expertise or financial resources, could transform their ideas into fully-fledged, decentralized, and scalable applications simply by interacting with an AI-driven development platform. This lower barrier to entry for app creation promises to accelerate innovation across the blockchain ecosystem and even in Web2.

NEAR’s presence at EthCC extended beyond AI discussions. Altan Tutar, CEO of Nuffle Labs, showcased Nuffle’s pioneering work on data availability, demonstrating how NEAR technology is scaling Ethereum L2s. This presentation highlighted NEAR Protocol’s versatility beyond its L1 capabilities and its potential to defragment Web3.

Alex Shevchenko from Aurora Labs introduced Forwarder, a personal bridge designed for seamless token transfers between centralized exchanges and various chains, addressing the rapid growth of new blockchains in the ecosystem.

A significant highlight of NEAR’s participation was the Chain Abstraction Day Brussels on July 10th. Co-hosted with Agoric Systems, this event marked the culmination of NEAR’s year-long series on interoperability and the future of multi-chain apps and transactions. The day-long program covered different methodologies to achieve chain abstraction to intents, data availability, and infrastructure, including a talk from Illia on what’s next in the NEAR ecosystem’s contributions to Chain Abstraction. A special fireside chat between Agoric’s Dean Tribble and Illia delved into architecting next-gen Web3 apps.

The NEAR AI Tech Showcase on July 11th further demonstrated NEAR’s commitment to innovation. The event featured live demonstrations of AI-powered blockchain applications, giving attendees hands-on experience with the latest developments from the NEAR ecosystem. Underpinning these developments was the NEAR Horizon AI Incubation Program, a strategic initiative designed to kickstart NEAR’s AI ecosystem by collaborating with top-tier Web3 x AI projects.

NEAR’s presence at EthCC 2024 offered the rest of the Web3 ecosystem a tangible vision of a User-Owned AI future with real technologies already taking shape. By championing the transfer of power and ownership to users, NEAR aims to unlock a myriad of benefits: enhanced productivity, improved search results, personalized experiences, and novel economic opportunities, all while maintaining a steadfast commitment to privacy and security. The ecosystem’s overarching goal remained clear: to onboard 1 billion users to a new open internet. NEAR’s unique position at the intersection of blockchain and AI showcased its readiness to address the growing demand for decentralized artificial intelligence, leveraging Web3’s inherent strengths to forge a truly user-owned digital landscape. As the event concluded, it was evident that EthCC 2024 marked a defining moment for NEAR Protocol, highlighting its visionary approach, technological prowess, and unwavering commitment to a decentralized, user-centric future.

Interested in learning more about User-Owned AI and the teams building the ecosystem? Check out the NEAR AI Office Hours series.