Nym from East to West: DevCon and Web Summit 2024

Showcasing how Nym is more than a VPN to the world

Author: Nym

November 16, 20243 mins read

It meant many overnight flights for the Nym core team, but we managed to do it all in one week: from DevCon in Bangkok to Web Summit in Lisbon, Nym showcased the upcoming launch of NymVPN and its underlying community and network.

The crowds couldn’t be more different, but the appeal was the same: the world needs something more than what traditional VPNs are offering. We need more access to information, more control of our data, more privacy in what we do and who we communicate with online.

So here’s a roundup of what the Nym team has been doing to make all of that possible.

DevCon 2024 (Bangkok)

The Nym team was in full force at DevCon for what turned out to be a pretty incredible event. Here’s a look at what happened over four days of presentations and discussions.

Sunday: Digital sovereignty

Nym’s Simon Toth chaired a panel on “Decentralized data in a surveillance economy: A path to data sovereignty” at the Decentralized Data Summit 2024.

Monday: Women In Tech

Yana Matrosova presented NymVPN on “Sovereign tools by Women in Web3Privacy” at Logos “Parallel Society” and moderated a panel on “Privacy with backdoors or without?” at Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress.

The opening talk was delivered by Harry Halpin and Chelsea Manning via video.

Tuesday: From the cypherpunks to the noise-generating mixnets

Harry Halpin delivered a Lightning Talk on “Why VPNs are a scam and what to do about it,” introducing Nym’s noise-generating mixnet as a novel solution to AI surveillance and data tracking. Check out the video.

Harry Halpin and Max Hampshire delivered the final talk at the Cypherpunk Congress on “The history and philosophy of cypherpunk,” with almost a 1000 people in attendance! It was truly an honor to speak to so many curious about the tradition at the foundation of Nym. Watch the full video here!

Wednesday: Collective security

Yana Matrosova presented “NymVPN and the Nym Squad League” at Women In Web3Privacy “Privacy Tools” side event. Multiple topics were discussed, including decentralization, zk, privacy, and cypherpunk values. Every person needs to take care of their own privacy themselves, Yana argued, because no-one is coming to save us!

Max Hampshire gave a Lightning Talk on “From Packets to Privacy: Understanding and evolving network security.” You can watch the full talk here.

Web Summit 2024 (Lisbon)

Harry and Chelsea hopped over to Portgual right away to attend Web Summit.

Panel discussion with Harry and Chelsea

Harry and Chlesea presented “More than a VPN: Defeating AI surveillance with Noise-Generating Mixnets” on a panel to show the architectural weaknesses of all existing VPNs and how NymVPN can do more.

Press conference: Protecting data against surveillance

Harry and Chelsea followed up with a press conference for journalists on what to expect for threats to privacy and protections after the US elections, especially with the rise of authoritarianisms and censorship to information worldwide.

Onwards

The events season is coming to a close, but right before a big opening: NymVPN will be released next month with live payments! Stay tuned through Nym’s weekly dev updates on the progress of the launch.