Lisk.js 2021 Recap

Lisk.js, our annual Lisk developer-focused event, is the culmination of all the development and research efforts of the Lisk project and ecosystem. This year’s edition was live-streamed from the stage in the Kühlhaus venue in Berlin and hosted fully online, so everyone could remain safe and healthy. Our two-day event featured a packed agenda comprising the latest cutting-edge and in-depth presentations by our research, development, and marketing teams. These talks included the latest updates, a deep-dive into the Lisk interoperability solution, our upcoming online hackathon, live demos, our newly improved Lisk Grant Program, and a range of presentations from our Lisk core community members who have built their own proof of concept blockchain applications using our Lisk SDK.

Day 1

Welcome Speech from our CEO and Co-Founder

The day started with a speech from our CEO and Co-Founder, Max Kordek, featuring an introduction of Lisk and an overview of what to expect from the event. In addition, Max also showcased the major differences between Lisk.js 2019 and this year’s edition of our blockchain developer-focused event.

Introducing Lisk’s Interoperability Solution

Our Head of Research, Jan Hackfeld, took the stage to unveil and introduce Lisk’s interoperability solution, the main focus of Lisk.js 2021. Jan’s inclusive presentation included a new roadmap and phases for Lisk Interoperability, and a nutshell introduction on the topic. Following Jan’s presentation, our Research Scientists covered topics such as:

• The Lifecycle of a Sidechain
• Cross-Chain Certification
• Cross-Chain Messages

The first part of the event concluded with some thoughts from our Head of Research, who returned on stage to discuss the next steps for Lisk Research.

Next Steps for Development

Following Jan’s insightful presentation, our Lead Backend Developer, Manu, went on stage to present “Road towards Mainnet v3”, providing an inclusive overview of Lisk’s planning and development process, and details regarding product updates required for the Lisk Core 3.0.0 testnet release.

You can watch our Development team presentation to learn more about our final steps before Mainnet Migration, our next interoperability objectives, as well as Lisk’s next SDK objectives, moving forward.

Introducing the Lisk Grant Program and the Online Hackathon

Before our CEO and Co-Founder, Max Kordek returned on stage it was our Marketing Lead, Monica Tartau who held her much anticipated presentation, to announce two new community initiatives: the new Lisk Grant Program and our upcoming online hackathon, HackOnLisk.

HackOnLisk is the first online hackathon for the Lisk ecosystem. In preparation for our upcoming Mainnet launch of Lisk Core 3.0.0, we decided to organize an online hackathon for the Lisk community. A total of 33,000 USD worth of prizes, as well as other non-monetary prizes, will be awarded. Participants are expected to build blockchain applications with the Lisk SDK 5.1.0. Learn more about the application process, the submission requirements, as well as the available resources on HackOnLisk.

The Lisk Grant Program was created with the purpose of attracting both entrepreneurs and developers into the Lisk ecosystem to build blockchain applications. In order to support the development of production-ready blockchain applications on the Lisk platform, we are offering a 60,000 CHF grant per application built with Lisk SDK. Learn more about the most important details for the application and selection process, as well as other requirements for being part of our Lisk Grant Program.

5 Years and Beyond

To close off the presentations for Day 1, our CEO and Co-Founder, Max Kordek, returned on stage at Kühlhaus to provide a brief and concise summary of all announcements, including:

• Lisk SDK 5.1.0
• Lisk Grant Program
• HackOnLisk
• Final steps for Lisk Mainnet
• Lisk Interoperability

During his presentation, Max introduced Lisk’s New Roadmap phases. The new roadmap outlines the network’s transformation from Quartz to Diamond, and describes the increase in capabilities as the technology advances through 6 unique roadmap phases. More details about the new Lisk roadmap can be found on the roadmap page on our website.

“A new era will begin for Lisk!”. The new roadmap, as Max says, will allow us to continue to tell the story of Lisk, as we fulfill all our ICO promises.

Q&A Session

Day 1 of Lisk.js 2021 ended with a Q&A session from both our Head of Research as well as our Lead Backend developers, and the Marketing Lead. The session covered topics such as:

• Potential number of sidechains
• Lisk SDK architecture
• Lisk Network Migration
• Blockchain Security
• Lisk Grant Program and HackOnLisk requirements and specifications

Day 2 was all about following up on what we briefly introduced on the first day of the event. For that, our Head of Research, Jan Hackfeld, went on stage to provide an agenda of what would be a three-hour comprehensive deep dive into Lisk’s Interoperability Solution, encompassing presentations from our Research Scientists. Andreas Kendziorra, Maxime Gagnebin, Iker Alustiza, and Alessandro Ricottone contributed to and presented the following Interoperability topics respectively:

• Certificate Generation
• Cross-Chain Update Transactions
• Token and NFT Standards
• Recovering Tokens and NFTs
• Interoperability with Lisk SDK

In case you want to learn more, we have recently published a blog post about the full Interoperability solution.

Deep Dive into Lisk SDK

Backend developer, Mitsuaki Uchimoto, introduced the Lisk SDK, providing an overview of its on-chain and off-chain architecture as well as a comparison between Lisk modules and smart contracts.

Next on stage was our Backend developer Ishan, who gave a deep dive into Lisk SDK 5.1.0, which was released during the event. His presentation included topics such as “Application Bootstrapping”, “Dashboard and Faucet Plugin”, “Lisk Console Command”, and “Application Testing”.

Backend developer Nazar Hussain went on stage at Kühlhaus and developed a blockchain application using the Lisk SDK 5.1.0. Nazar’s live demo is now available here.

Backend developer Rishi gave a presentation on the scalability and performance improvements in Lisk Core 3.0.0 as well as a quick dive into the upcoming scalability improvements with the Lisk interoperability phase.

It was time once again to call on stage all the presenters of the day for our final Q&A session of the event. Here are some of the community questions answered by the Development team at Lisk:

• Can Lisk solve the gas fee problem?
• Does a public testnet cost money?
• How easy is it to build a new plugin?
• What would a smart contract module look like?

Lisk Community Presentations

For our final section of Day 2 of Lisk.js 2021 we hosted 6 inclusive presentations from Lisk community members who have already built proof of concept blockchain applications with the Lisk SDK. These include:

• Kalipo blockchain application, a DAO platform built by Peter Nobels and the LCU team
• Lisk Ticketing, an honest ticketing system by Moosty Team
• Lisk Crowd, a crowdfund platform, also built by the Moosty team
• Collabolancer, an open-source decentralized freelancing marketplace, by Aldo
• Nash Stablecoin, a stablecoin, built and presented by Kasra Abbaszadeh
• Last but not least was Moracle, an oracle solution for building connected apps with the Lisk SDK and it was built by Jackson Roberts.

Main Takeaways from Lisk.js 2021

• Total number of registrations: 1100+
• 9 hours of content
• 450 slides
• Nearly 9000 recurrent viewers

With this, we would like to kindly thank everyone that registered and joined us online at Lisk.js 2021. This was a great opportunity for Lisk to showcase all the great things we have been doing recently as well as to unveil our Interoperability solution and next steps for the future, now with a new roadmap. We hope to see you again next year in Berlin at Kühlhaus for Lisk.js 2022, the annual developer-focused event, this time in person and also online. For other Lisk’s upcoming events, remember to visit our events list.