The crypto-immersive Blockchain Futurist Conference took place in Toronto last week, where we joined thousands of attendees to learn about and discuss the future of blockchain. Here are a few highlights from the conference.

Our goal with Esprezzo is to help developers build and manage blockchain-integrated applications without needing to learn new, complicated programming languages or hire blockchain architects and infrastructure experts.

Today, we’re excited to share a very early preview of Esprezzo, with an example use case of setting up a token and token sale in a few easy steps. We show a few examples of project types that are used to generate smart contracts, and the ability to select a blockchain to deploy to, as well as pick SDKs for use with your apps in the language of your choice.

To best understand how Esprezzo can meet the needs of the developer community, we’ve been conducting surveys and market research with developers who share a variety of professional and technical backgrounds.

While many are familiar with the capabilities and benefits that come with using blockchain to develop web and mobile applications, it’s surprising how many haven’t conveyed an interest in blockchain.

But if developers are exposed to news and reports similar to this recent TechCrunch article, it won’t take them very long to understand that blockchain presents developers an enormous opportunity to boost their careers and their bank accounts.

Like many stories behind the founding of a venture, the main theme of Esprezzo's establishment is one of iteration. In our original effort to disrupt legacy student identity management using blockchain, we discovered a need in the developer community to make blockchain more accessible. My co-founder, Alan (AJ) Wilhelm, and I now have a proof of concept in development running against a version of Ethereum and a team of 7, but getting to this point was not a straight path. While the need for more accessible blockchain development tools drove the creation of Esprezzo, it’s worth going back to the beginning to understand that our team has always been forward thinking.