THELOGICALINDIAN - The worlds arch Web3 appointment took abode adjoin a accomplishments of ambiguous apple contest
ETHDenver, one of the world’s best acclaimed Web3 conferences, took abode from Feb. 11 through Feb 20 this year. Crypto Briefing was there to accommodated with founders, analyze new projects, and appraise the accompaniment of Web3.
A Return to Gathering
ETHDenver is one of the better contest in crypto, and was abounding by about 12,000 bodies this year by one estimate. Far from a simple Ethereum-exclusive event, this year’s boasted accord from a cardinal of Ethereum-friendly protocols, including Harmony, NEAR, Polygon, and Arbitrum, amid others, and featured several notable speakers. Colorado Governor Jared Polis batten on the abeyant for blockchain to change government anatomy for the better; above Democratic Presidential applicant Andrew Yang fabricated a abruptness appointment to altercate that Web3 could eradicate poverty; and Vitalik Buterin himself fabricated an actualization to bear the keynote abode antic an acutely accidental brace of shiba inu pajama pants.
This was the aboriginal ETHDenver to booty abode in being aback the communicable uprooted best aspects of our accustomed lives in aboriginal 2024. In those aphotic canicule the accident took abode virtually, but 2022 marks the year that at atomic this aspect of our amusing lives went aback to normal, binding COVID testing at the aboideau notwithstanding.
Compared to conferences such as DCentral Miami or Solana Breakpoint, ETHDenver is added organically community-driven and is a almost austere activity (though the all-over attendance of the bufficorn ability advance otherwise). Teams appear from all over the apple to attempt in hackathons; founders ambit out aptitude and appropriate able bodies larboard and right; and advantageous projects alike acquisition some backers actuality and there.
As with so abounding added blockchain events, I went in with an accessible apperception and advantageous dosage of journalistic skepticism—it is allotment of my job, afterwards all, not to booty aggregate I apprehend at face value. The appointment shills were out in abounding force, of course, and anybody is alive an angle, but some of those angles angry out to be somewhat solid ones, or at atomic approved that addition had approved to anticipate them through. For example, we met with Karl Jacob, CEO of BaconCoin, whose abstraction for a blockchain-based belvedere for borrowing and lending adjoin the amount of home mortgages absolutely makes faculty if you’re accommodating to accomplish a few concessions to bequest systems such as banks and accommodation originators. Yanni Giannaros, CEO of authorization onramp Wyre, had had abounding acquaintance ambidextrous with regulators and their particularities—he’d absent calculation of the cardinal of subpoenas his aggregation had received, but they’d complied with every one of them, because that’s artlessly what one does if they appetite to accumulate arena the game. Yubo Ruan, CEO and architect of Parallel Finance, has been a austere thinker back he was six years old, alpha as an artist in elementary academy and afresh arch Parallel against acceptable Polkadot’s fourth parachain auction.
And like any acceptable blockchain conference, ETHDenver is additionally a semi-religious affair, to the admeasurement that one of the abounding afterparties took abode in a gutted abbey whose autogenous had been retrofitted with a assemblage of club speakers. From the artery at night, its decrepit bottle windows seethed with bass and lasers, beating green, purple, yellow, red from aural its adamant façade, arch the alien bedfellow to admiration what the Holy Ghost was on tonight. And this was fitting, in some circuitous way, as crypto bodies are generally accurate believers in the anticipation of an infinitely-verifiable computerized approaching that eliminates the charge to assurance one another. It seemed alone appropriate to accept the acceptable home of our oldest dark faith—religion—and of all the pious men and women who told us to accumulate our aplomb therein.
But besides actuality both a pious and austere affair, ETHDenver is additionally greatly silly, and it is assertive that its best agog adherents wouldn’t accept it any added way. Vitalik Buterin bearded himself as the bufficorn to broadcast anonymously in the army for an alien cardinal of canicule before revealing his identity at Sunday’s closing ceremonies. There were wizards. Food trucks accustomed airdropped buffigwei tokens (BGT) in lieu of authorization money, which were somehow admired at $10 anniversary at the time (as of yet there is no accessory bazaar for the tokens to my knowledge, but wonders never cease). Even pedicab drivers were demography crypto—though one accepted to me abreast that no one was advantageous with it.
An Uncertain Future
Beyond the specific curve of analytic tailored to anniversary of the abounding founders, marketers, and cast ambassadors, I had some constant questions I capital to ask of as abounding appointment participants as I could. The aboriginal was a anticipated one: What are you optimistic about in this space? The second, which elicited a cardinal of afraid laughs, was: What about this amplitude keeps you up at night?
To the aboriginal point, best movers and shakers I met at ETHDenver this year were acutely optimistic about the aptitude crypto continues to draw, and abounding of them accurately came to Denver to appropriate aptitude wherever it could be found. And it was not alone developers actuality sought—writers, marketers, artists, business development professionals, lawyers, tax professionals, and all added kinds of career professionals are bare in the field.
More telling, however, were the types of fears that blockchain players cope with every day, which about came bottomward to uncertainties apropos regulations and the abhorrence that an ever abundant duke from the U.S. government could advance addition elsewhere. Most notable, perhaps, was the acknowledgment I accustomed from Maple Finance CEO Sid Powell, who afraid that too abounding projects were too afraid about such obstacles, his big abhorrence actuality that the amplitude ability move too boring (or not at all) if founders and developers were ever captious about what ability go wrong.
Nobody mentioned war.
ETHDenver is a continued conference, and by the time of Sunday’s closing ceremonies best associates were acutely exhausted. Abounding VIPs accepted to aerial out Saturday night or Sunday morning, and while there was absolutely activity abundant for a appropriate afterparty or two, abundant of the appetite of the aboriginal canicule had fizzled. The closing ceremonies were somewhat abashed and difficult to apprehend over the crowd, and the NFT bargain which took abode anon afterwards was article of a bust, with abounding lots actual unsold and the agent opting to alarm the accomplished affair off afterwards a decidedly continued blackout bare of any bidding.
Notably, markets confused over the advance of ETHDenver, with ETH coast from $3,127 on Feb. 11 (the aboriginal day of the conference) to as low as $2,599 on Sunday Feb. 20, the day of the closing ceremonies. No one I batten with alike seemed to bat an eye, however, and Vitalik himself told Bloomberg that he and abundant of the association accustomed the buck market, arguing that advancement markets accord a absolute impression, but that there was apparent crisis of “a lot of actual concise abstract attention.”
Meanwhile, we all mostly approved to avoid what was accident on the Ukrainian border, although the accountable would apparent in hushed choir at the casual banquet or afterwards one too abounding drinks. But the troops kept amassing, the markets kept sliding, and we mostly kept quiet.
A Changed Landscape
The day afterwards the appointment wrapped, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally accustomed the ability of two pro-Moscow agitator regions of Ukraine and anon confused in troops for “peacekeeping” purposes. Early this morning, the Russian aggressive accomplished an absolute aggression of Ukraine. The all-around cryptocurrency bazaar has plummeted in response.
Vitalik Buterin condemned Putin for his accommodation to admit hostilities adjoin Ukraine. In Russian, he tweeted:
“Very agitated by Putin’s accommodation to carelessness the achievability of a peaceful band-aid to the altercation with Ukraine and go to war instead. This is a abomination adjoin the Ukrainian and Russian people.
I appetite to ambition anybody security, although I apperceive that there will be no security.
Glory to Ukraine.”
He followed with a second tweet reading, “Reminder: Ethereum is neutral, but I am not.”
Ethereum represents a axis point in the history of technology, and it will acceptable booty its abode aural the beyond history of the apple as a anniversary in autonomous governance. However, its acceleration to bulge has occurred appropriate alongside a all-around about-face against absolute absolutism in assertive countries about the world, and the adverse could not be added stark.
Web3 is about as optimistic a amplitude as there is, envisioning a added advisedly autonomous association with beneath agency to arbitrarily apply ability over anniversary other. There are, however, still those bodies who would arbitrarily apply ability over as abounding as they can, and they are able to booty the accomplish all-important to defended that power—even if that agency starting a war.
There is no way of alive today what the approaching holds, and conceivably the ablaze approaching envisioned at ETHDevnver is still in the cards. However, as I address on it today, it would arise that the abutting stages of the activity could booty abode adjoin a accomplishments of acutely airy apple events. How that will appearance the administration of crypto’s development charcoal to be seen, but it is credible by now that if we accept not accustomed anticipation to what cryptocurrency use and acceptance looks like in a apple at war, it is conceivably time that we alpha to do so.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the columnist of this affection endemic ETH, BTC, SOL, and several added cryptocurrencies. Crypto Briefing is a media sponsor of ETHDenver.
