DeFi Toronto - Sept Meetup (online via Zoom)

Agenda:

1. DeFi news recap
2. Lessons for launching NFTs at scale, Chinmay Patel, CEO of BlockX Lab
3. Axie Infinity: Building a Digital Nation, Jeffrey Zirlin, Cofounder of Sky Mavis
4. Covalent and the future of onchain data, Erik Ashdown, Head of Ecosystem, Covalent.
5. Community annoucements

Speaker Bios:

** Chinmay Patel is a co-founder of BlockX Labs. BlockX Labs is a successful blockchain development shop based in Toronto. They have launched dozens of projects to mainnet including wallets, exchanges, and zk-snark mixers. Most recently, they have launched NFT Management App for Shopify merchants.

** Jeffrey Zirlin (aka "Jihoz"), is a co-founder of Sky Mavis, the creators of Axie Infinity. Axie is the #1 NFT game by DAU, marketplace volume, and cultural impact. As Growth Lead, he spearheads messaging, community empowerment, and economic balancing. Jeff grew up playing video games and catching insects. His academic interests include military history and monetary policy.

** Erik Ashdown is Head of Ecosystem at Covalent. He's a serial entrepreneur with one exit. Built a token crowdfunding platform during the 2017/2018 crypto boom. Exited to run partnerships at Bidali, a company that specializes in integrations with wallets and exchanges to allow people to spend their crypto via payments and on gift cards. Before this Erik worked in products at larger companies such as IGG & Best Buy as well as in partnerships with financial & tax products dealing exclusively with C-Suite tech entrepreneurs at Boast.ai.