DeFi
DeFi community marvels at ETHDenver over interoperability and Kennedy – DL News
- DeFi came out in a big way this year at the “best ETHDenver ever.”
- Bitcoin advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his pitch to crypto-loving voters.
- Interoperability is back as the lines between crypto projects blur.
Crypto conferences are one of the rare occasions where investors can see the faces behind this $2.5 trillion industry.
Among these exhibitions, ETHDenver is the the biggest — Last year, 15,000 participants from more than 115 different countries were welcomed.
With an increasingly saturated circuit of crypto events spanning multiple continents, you’d think attendees would get bored – that’s not the case. Creating a decentralized, permissionless, and scalable way to transact value is an iterative process, and no one knows this better than the Ethereum faithful.
“This is the best ETHDenver yet,” said many attendees I spoke to, ranging from crypto executives to curious enthusiasts, and even some of my fellow journalists.
Cleaning rally
Soaking up the vibe of ETHDenver, it’s hard to believe that just a few months ago, crypto fortunes were very, very different.
Falling valuations, the collapse of FTX, and a series of costly hacks left even the most die-hard believers wondering if crypto would come back.
But a gathering has a way of wiping the slate clean. In the month leading up to the event, Ethereum experienced a 50% tear, taking the asset to its highest price since early 2022.
As a first-time visitor to Spork Castle, the affectionately named main events hall, my only point of reference was EthCC, the largest European Ethereum conference with limited tickets costing over $500.
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ETHDenver, which is free to enter, had a decidedly more American atmosphere.
The food offered was sweet, greasy and heartbreaking. Beers were $15 and politics was still present.
This year there was even the high-profile, and perhaps last-minute, addition of a press conference and fireside chat with independent presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr – or RFK Jr for many of his supporters.
So, with the cool Colorado breeze in my hair, I ventured past the bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors to see what ETHDenver could tell me about the state of the crypto industry and those who invest in it.
Kennedy comes to ETHDenver
When I learned there would be an exclusive press conference with Kennedy at ETHDenver, I had mixed feelings.
Yet I couldn’t not come on, that would be journalistic malpractice. And in the end, I’m very happy I did it.
On an unusually warm Saturday afternoon, Kennedy emerged from behind a black curtain in a back room of the conference, surrounded by several intimidating-looking bodyguards with headphones.
His voice was fragile and hoarse, which I later learned was due to his spasmodic dysphoniaa voice disorder that gives his speech a strained quality.
Still, the presidential candidate kept his cool and it didn’t take long before he had the crowd laughing.
A reporter asked a complex question about what Kennedy was doing to become a more attractive candidate for crypto supporters.
“Well, I came here,” he said pointedly back.
When it was my turn to ask a question, I asked the candidate about his unwavering environmental beliefs and his support for Bitcoin.
When it was my turn to ask a question, I asked the candidate about his unwavering environmental beliefs and his support for Bitcoin, which, despite many improvements in recent years, still relies heavily on non-renewable energy.
To my surprise, his response hit all the right talking points. He explained how sustainable Bitcoin mining can help subsidize green energy projects by monetizing excess energy. It was clear that Kennedy’s understanding and support of cryptography was more than superficial – he gets it.
However, immediately afterward, he responded to a joking question about whether Bitcoin was perhaps causing autism a little less.
“Correlation does not equal causation,” he said.
“Is the science still up for debate?” » said the applicant.
“Exactly.”
His response was clearly a joke. But the exchange and the topic reminded me of Kennedy’s past experience promoting public health conspiracy theories, something many of his supporters at the event seemed desperate to ignore.
“He’s not anti-vax,” a volunteer at the Kennedy booth told me. “You have to think: Did I hear him say that, or was it the mainstream media?
I asked why she and others had come to ETHDenver to campaign.
“People are fed up with it,” she said, making a general comparison to the general unease crypto people feel with the existing financial system.
One idea I heard repeatedly during the conference was that crypto proponents and Kennedy supporters have a lot in common: they both propose an alternative to the existing order, whether of the two-party system in Washington or the monetary policies of Washington. central banks around the world.
I wasn’t sure if RFK was a real alternative. But judging by the number of badge-wearing attendees, many at ETHDenver certainly did.
Younger generations want a plan B
Conferences like ETHDenver are notorious for their side events, lavish and often unofficial parties thrown by companies with excessive marketing budgets or crypto-whales looking to flaunt their wealth.
Consensys, the company behind the popular MetaMask crypto wallet, invited me to their event, a modest happy hour at a local hotel bar.
A MetaMask employee, who said he was 50, explained how he struggled to get other people his age interested in crypto.
“They’ve been too good for too long,” he theorized. The reason younger generations are interested, he says, is because they “need a plan B.”
Certainly, millennials are the main owners of crypto, with a recent study revealing that over 76% of crypto buyers were aged 25-40.
Millennials, the most populous generation in U.S. history, are also experiencing slow wage growth, unaffordable housing and soaring prices due to emergency spending during the pandemic.
After the event, I was invited to a semi-secret party at Consensys, which I was assured would be a wild time.
I had heard rumors that the night before, members of the Bitcoin maximalist crowd – crypto fans who denounce all other cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin – had thrown their own raucous party over in which participants dyed their hair orange and received Bitcoin on the spur of the moment. tattoos.
But in Denver, at 6,000 feet above sea level, the alcohol hits a little harder than usual, so after three drinks, I decided to call it a night.
ETHDenver, or everyone Denver?
Like the broader crypto ecosystem, the lines between different projects are becoming increasingly blurred. And ETHDenver, which started in 2018 as a close-knit event for die-hard Ethereum fans and builders, is also following this trend.
Projects like Solana and Polkadot, both of which have been hailed as “Ethereum killers” in the past, had set up camp at the booth and hosted official ETHDenver events.
Their presence, I thought, reflected the push toward interoperability happening within the broader blockchain ecosystem.
Chains like Solana and Ethereum, which were previously isolated from each other due to their different software implementations, are now easy to connect thanks to specialized protocols like Wormhole, LayerZero, and Axelar.
So it made sense that I could chat with the team behind the Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain Arbitrum and then find the Solana developers right around the corner.
An omnipresent tribalism
My inner cynic knows that the reason for so much diversity at an Ethereum conference was purely financial. As long as a project has money, they can purchase as many stands and sponsorships as they want.
But at the same time, I wondered if the situation also had positive aspects and if it could help break down the pervasive tribalism and infighting between different blockchains and DeFi protocols.
Then again, Denver is a city where you can’t walk two blocks without a whiff of cannabis invading your nostrils, so it could have been just that.
Tim Craig is DL News’ DeFi correspondent based in Edinburgh. Contact us with advice at tim@dlnews.com.