NFT Philly's 2022 Wrap-up
Shoutouts, Shills, and More
Good morning to the fine folks of NFT Philly!
2022 has been quite the year for the blockchain. We’ve had some ups and downs. Mostly downs. Lots of downs.
But the NFT Philly community continues to build by hosting events people want to go to.
Let’s talk about it.
Building Web3 in Philly
December 15th
Huge thank you to EisnerAmper and our man on the inside, Joey Nguyen, along with Jason Juliano, for allowing us to put this together. EisnerAmper provided the location, the food and drinks, and the resources to ensure this event went smoothly.
The weather was not kind that day, so if you made it out we truly appreciate it. You are absolutely “gonna make it”
Our goal here was to create a space for deeper conversations about NFTs, blockchain, and Web3 in general.
This was an afternoon of panels and chats from our Philly-based industry experts.
We’re all very bullish on the opportunity in front of us. But it felt good (even needed) to argue the reasons why not everything is all sunshine and rainbows.
There were some very strong opinions on DAOs (from both sides) and lots of legal discussion (takeaway: Have a blockchain project? Hire a competent lawyer. Always. No matter what.) We talked shipping applications, intellectual property, environmental impacts, and a lot more.
And there was a ton of stuff we didn’t get a chance to talk about.
The demand for this type of event is huge!
Not everyone can make it out to our late night hangouts. In fact, it’s a substantial amount of people who can't. But for an afternoon business meeting? Absolutely!
The demand for people to speak or be on a panel was also there. It just goes to show how many talented and distinguished people there are in our community here in Philadelphia.
So, we learned two things. One is how to organize, schedule, and run an event like this. Two, is that we should do this again. And soon.
You can view the full gallery here. Thank you Derek Manganelli!
Let’s give a shout-out to our panelists, moderators, and everyone who made it happen.
Panels
Adam Sternbach | General Counsel, Tessera.co
Ariel Givner | Founder, Givner Law
Erik Caputo | Founder of BeMetaVersed
Joseph Nguyen | Senior Consultant at EisnerAmper
Jason Juliano | Director at EisnerAmper
Lance Wyllie | Head of Growth & Web 3 Strategy LawCity.com
Mike Ghen | Ricochet Exchange Founder, DeFi Philly
Patrick Thompson | VP, BlockDojo
Walter Zinenko | Manager, Business Advisory at EisnerAmper
Shoutouts
Rev. Lore Lord does the post game wrap-up show and interviews Joey, Tyrone, and I for All of Us Radio. Check out the episode here.
Jason Lu | Bored Bagels - Before the catering came out, Jason comes through with the delicious pre-game coffee and bagels.
Mike McCoy - was one of the first people I reached out to about this event. He was immediately on board and very helpful in getting the word out. An absolute Philly crypto OG.
One last thing - I gave quick slide deck on NFT Philly - what we’ve done and where we go from here and what not.
One of the points I made during the presentation was that Philadelphia can absolutely be a Top 5 city for web3 in the United States.
New York, Los Angeles, and Miami are all bigger cities (well, not Miami) and have a huge head start. But there’s nothing stopping us from building Philadelphia into a top destination for web3 knowledge, events, and community.
A lot of people agreed with that. So let’s keep building.
Art Meets NFTs
November 18th
NFT Philly took over Arch Enemy Arts. This was a great evening of hanging out and talking web3 in a space built around the traditional art world. It was a great turnout, and we met many new faces. More importantly, no one broke anything!
There was a lot of work that went into this one! A massive thank you to our sponsors.
Mr. Magic of the Drippieverse - Great project with a unique spin on the NFT
Dori Desautel Broudy - Lawyer turned artist and massive supporter of our community.
Stank Ape SpeakEasy & McAllister Brewing brought the beverages. The CBD drinks were a huge hit!
You can view the full gallery for this event here. Once again, thank you Derek Manganelli!
Upcoming Stuff
We don’t have an NFT Philly sanctioned event on the calendar at this very moment (soon), but here are two events where you can find many from our community.
DeFi Philly’s Holiday Party - Thursday, December 29th. Yes, it’s at the GIANT. But if you know, you know. The GIANT rules!
EndState’s Devonta Smith Meet & Greet - Tuesday, January 3rd. See this tweet for more details. We love these kind of events because you will always meet new people who are just getting into NFTs, but have no idea that there is this massive NFT Philly community to explore.