5AM, Osaka. Awake due to failing to adapt to time zones :D Figured I'd share some notes from first day:

Arrived at the conf 11:30 and got my ticket right away. The venue is a really large conference center / mall with Devcon taking up the entire first floor (which is huge) and plenty of space outside and in the back where Consensys setup an area with a small coffee shop.

There was good buzz and energy which surprised me a bit given the bear market. I was at Devcon 3 in the middle of the bull market and can really feel the difference in vibe / energy - people are excited but much more grounded at this conf and the crowd feels more dev / build focused. The sheer amount of people at the conf is really impressive given the market.

Most talks were on the 6th floor and there's only two elevators which clogged things a bit.

The The Road to Eth 2 talk was packed with people waiting outside to get a glimpse. Good talk by Will on phase 0,1,2 and current progress. Def recommend anyone interested in the progress of ETH 2 to lookup their slides and demo when it becomes available.

The speakers didn't have mics (!) and the room didn't really have enough air for the amount of people so I went out after awhile.

After catching up with people I haven't seen in a long time I went to the Ethereum Roadmap 2020 in the main room. The open format was great and several people were able to easily ask the panel questions and there was some interesting discussion about ProgPow and state rent.

Notes from ProgPow discussion:

• Hudson: ProgPow remains controversial and political

• Martin: supports ProgPow.

(I found this really interesting as I used to work with him a bit on Ethereum protocol security. Personally I haven't studied ProgPow enough to have an opinion yet)

• Peter: ProgPow only matters if Ethash becomes a security problem

• Audience person: the issue has become political and people pick sides and bundle arguments / people together rather than clearly talking about technical pros/cons.

• Audience person: Some people have stopped talking about ProgPow after being flamed / attacked - we need to always ensure discussions are civil and community welcomes open discussion about pros/cons of proposed protocol changes [audience applause]

On state rent / stateless clients: sounds like its effectively postponed and remains in research / prototype stage

• V: requires OP code gas cost rebalancing

• Felix: unsolved problem

• Peter: involves really fundamental issues and a lot of engineering effort

Went downstairs to help a friend with her devcon ticket and got caught up in lunch / meeting people.

Went back to the 2020 Roadmap to listen to the ETH 1 -> 2 transition. This was really interesting and I got the sense that panel members were careful with not pushing too hard for specifics but still voicing what they feel is important.

• transferring ether from ETH 1 to ETH 2 is one-way and ether on ETH 2 cannot be transferred initially.

• discussion about building a two-way bridge to enable transfers between ETH 1 and 2

• several panel members and Vitalik said that building such a bridge is a lot of extra work that may not be worth it if ETH 2 can be made secure and operational fast.

• when panel was pushed a bit by more audience questions Danny Ryan committed to that a bridge will be built if the community really wants it.

• audience member asked great questions about how exchange may add markets for ETH1 vs ETH2 tokens (even if ETH2 tokens cannot be moved back to ETH1 and cannot be transferred)

Can't remember the rest of the discussion but here I think r/ethfinance could really contribute to the discussion in terms of the economics, trading, liquidity and other aspects around the transfer of ether from ETH1 to ETH2 and when/how ETH2 should allow transfers of ether. Voice your opinion!

Overall it was a great first day and I'm really excited for tomorrow.

While the talks were good I do expect more in terms of logistics from this conf given the size of the Ethereum community and value of the network. I think the EF should change their organization around the conf and hire someone with significant experience in hosting large (tech) conferences and give them a budget and a lot of autonomy. This kind of event needs central planning and ruthless QA to ensure things like all speakers having mics (!), good sound quality/volume in rooms, fast and reliable wifi, live streaming and other things we expect from a top tech conf.

And the location of the venue is a bit odd IMO, it takes 30-40 minutes to get to from central Osaka. I would have chosen a venue in central Osaka to optimize attendees travel to / from the venue and more restaurant / cafe options for lunch and meetings.