Expert Spoke About Blockchain Development at the ISDEF 2023 Conference

Author: Danila Sudbin, Staff Software Engineer at MoneyCat Financing Inc., shared his best practices with the professional community. He also spoke about the current trends of blockchain development and the Web3 sector.

In September, the non-profit association ISDEF (Independent Software Developers Forum) held an international conference on information technologies. Danila Sudbin, Staff Software Engineer at MoneyCat Financing Inc., made a presentation there. He informed the audience about what blockchain development is, reviewed projects in this sphere, and marked the trajectory of Web3 development.

What is ISDEF 2023?

— In the early 2000s, Russian-speaking software manufacturers united in the non-profit association of ISDEF (Independent Software Developers Forum). They aimed at creating a club within which it would be possible to effectively exchange experience, replicate successful business practices, negotiate joint projects as well as represent and protect the interests of their businesses.

Professional conferences of the ISDEF Association are held regularly and gather a combined audience of 200 to 500 participants from 25-30 countries.

The community has been holding conferences and meetings of its participants since 2002. Among the members of the community are such legends as Alexander Katalov (Elcomsoft), Sergey Ryzhikov (1C-Bitrix), Alexander Lyskovsky (Alawar Entertainment, iFarm), Dmitry Kurashev (UserGate), Lev Matveyev (SearchInform), Yuri Uskov (iSpring), Lev Yakupov (TrueConf) and Maxim Bolotov (INOSTUDIO).

In terms of the ISDEF 2023 conference, experts spoke about current cases and secrets of the desktop/server software and DevTools & SaaS market. The Board of Directors was held in a new format. Master classes were organized. The participants of the event had the opportunity to expand networking with owners and top managers of small and medium-sized IT exporters.

Topics of reports and speakers

At the ISDEF 2023 conference, leading industry experts made presentations that highlighted a wide range of hot topics in the field of software development.

● Dmitry Kalaev, Director of the IIDF accelerator, spoke about how to build a successful startup on import substitution.

● Danila Sudbin, Staff Software Engineer at MoneyCat, shared his experience and knowledge in the development and promotion of decentralized

applications. His report was filled with real-life cases and tips that helped

participants understand how to realize their potential in Web3.

● Andrey Konshin, the Best Mentor of Skolkovo in 2022, talked about who to

contact: mentor, coach, tracker, psychologist, consulting, expert, business coach, agile-coach info businessman or facilitator. His report was filled with stories about cognitive distortions in IT entrepreneurship.

● Lev Yakupov from TrueConf spoke about marketing in an era of change and shared recipes that work. He told the audience about his experience in reconfiguring marketing tools to work in modern realities when all target markets are divided into friendly and not-so-friendly.

● Yaroslav Gorodetsky, co-founder of CDNvideo, spoke about the history of his company’s formation. He told the audience how to grow a startup and make it part of a global holding.

The ISDEF 2023 conference became a platform for the exchange of knowledge and experience among leading industry experts. It helped participants gain new knowledge and skills as well as learn about the latest trends in software development.

— What exactly did Danila talk about at the conference?

The material that Danila provided included an overview of the blockchain architecture and development on it. In particular, how transactions are carried out, what checks occur when working with them (mining or staking) and what are the differences from the banking sector. Danila also spoke about projects, blockchain development, and the Web3 industry that solve the problems of scalability, stability, fault tolerance, and security. He analyzed such well-known projects in the industry as Solana, Polkadot, Aptos, Moralis, and digital currencies of different countries. He also touched upon the issues of data storage and search as well as analyzed the terms and mechanisms of centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges. The audience figured out how smart contracts work and which standards there are in the industry.

Danila spoke about the current trends in blockchain development and the Web3 industry. He described the process of integrating new technologies into the economy as quite fast and progressive. He also mentioned the creation of digital currencies in the Russian Federation and India. He talked about the technologies used to store medical card data in Denmark. Danila paid the most attention to the trend of the inevitable regulation process. Any technology needs to go through the stage of being introduced into the regulatory regime for state control.

— Which topics did Danila touch on from a technical point of view?

Danila spoke about Web3 from the point of view of the Internet evolution. He explained with examples of how technical capabilities moved from single-page websites with a file database to decentralized finance. Danila also talked about how the blockchain replaced the database and the relation between the standard backend code and smart contracts.

At the origins of blockchain technologies in the country in Armenia

One of the projects where Danila Sudbin proved himself as a genuine expert was ECOS. This company created the first mining platform in Armenia. The cost of electricity for equipment is crucial for mining, so it was especially important to reduce its cost. ECOS started cooperation with the Government of Armenia to launch a free economic zone and obtain preferential electricity tariffs, real estate rentals, and other useful tools for business. Since the company launched this initiative, it became a permanent resident of the free economic zone in Armenia.

During his time at ECOS, Danila Sudbin managed to update the entire architecture of the project. He dealt with the technical debt that remained from the past web studios with which the company worked. He organized the transition to higher-quality and more modern backend and frontend frameworks. In addition, he built an SLA (Service Level Agreement) system — as a result, the number of major incidents decreased by as much as 23%. Danila prepared the project for growing loads from 10,000 to 200,000 users — and then, this number exceeded 400,000. He initiated and managed the launch of the iOS and Android mobile applications on the ecos.am platform.

In this company, Danila Sudbin managed to create many products together with the team. For example, it was cloud mining. The company bought a miner (specialized hardware for Bitcoin mining) for the client and installed it in its data center or shared its own capacities while providing maintenance. It was a complex infrastructure to support, consisting of a Bitcoin node (a computer that processes Bitcoin transactions) and software. Constant monitoring of servers was carried out, in which the maximum SLA was important. By saying so, we mean the necessity to maintain the level of stability — if the servers were downtime, the company would literally lose money.

In addition to cloud mining, Danila Sudbin led the development of the company's custodial crypto wallet. It is used to send and receive payments, open accounts, stake funds (similar to bank deposits but in cryptocurrency) and buy cryptocurrencies with conventional money (through the Mercuryo service). With Danila’s participation, a crypto exchange was created in ECOS. It enables users to exchange cryptocurrencies, including the Bitcoins that they mined inside the system, for dollars, euros, and other traditional currencies. Danila managed to cope with the main challenge — to remove the time delay. It is very important because the exchange rate is constantly changing.

The company's products, which were developed by Danila Sudbin, also included investment portfolios for managing the user’s asset groups.

Based on his work, Danila Sudbin advised entry-level specialists to study such development tools as Hardhat, Ganache, Infura, Metamask, Solidity, Move and ERC standards from the Ethereum foundation. This is quite enough to get a job in this field.

For the benefit of professionals and beginners

Danila Sudbin is the author of the scientific article "Digital User Avatar on the Blockchain". It was published on February 18, 2023, in Los Angeles at the International Conference on Science, Engineering, and Technology (ICSET).

Having become a high-class professional, Danila Sudbin transfers experience to entry-level specialists. He conducted practical classes on fintech development at one of the innovative departments of the Moscow Aviation University (MAI). Such electives are held there with invited experts from the industry. Sudbin evaluated the students' work — for them, it was an opportunity to get feedback from a genuine expert with enormous practical experience, who is in the thick of new technologies and industry trends.

Such events as the international conference on information technologies, organized by ISDEF, at which Sudbin spoke, are very useful both for experienced programmers and those who are new to the profession.

Danila shares his impressions: "In general, the experience of speaking at the conference and teaching seemed quite interesting to me. I am sure it is very important for industry experts and entry-level specialists to understand in which direction the development of economic sectors is going. When experienced professionals participate in conferences, they get new ideas, under the influence of which they can create new products. After attending such practical classes, it becomes easier for students to choose a profession and specialty. It can have a good effect on the number and quality of the staff who shape the labor market. I am very glad that I was able to contribute to the industry in this way."