Why You Should Go to Devconnect in Buenos Aires
The Ethereum Foundation hosts two events, Devcon and Devconnect.
These two events orbit each other, and represent two opposing styles of a conference. Devcon is the large, centralized, top-down EF-orchestrated event, and Devconnect is the bottom-up, emergent, festival of the Ethereum community.
This year, Devconnect is being held in Buenos Aires.
For those who have been tracking the Ethereum conference world, this is a mic drop moment. A large, official Ethereum event in Buenos Aires has always been on the horizon. We all knew it would eventually come, and now it's finally here.
The Argentine Ethereum community (which is large) has been waiting for this moment for a decade. I am getting chills just writing these words!!
Ethereum is a global ecosystem, but parts of the world have adopted Ethereum faster than others, and no one has adopted Ethereum faster than Argentina.
Decades of inflation, capital controls, and a tech-literate population pushed everyday people to peer-to-peer finance. ~10% of Argentines use crypto daily, ~20% own it, and roughly 30% live completely bankless, because of what Ethereum has enabled for the country.
When you land in BA, it feels like you time traveled 5 years forward in Ethereum adoption.
Which is perfect, because this Devconnect’s theme is Ethereum World’s Fair — a reference to the World’s Fair events, which are large international exhibitions showcasing industry, technology, art, and culture, with a focus on a relevant global theme.
If you’ve ever been curious about official Ethereum events, Devcon or Devconnect, this is the one to go to.
Plus, Buenos Aires and Argentina are amazing. The food is incredible — especially for my fellow meat eaters. "Asado" is Argentine’s version of barbecue, but leave the sauce at home — the meat is so incredibly good you don’t need to add anything (it's blasphemy).
Also, many attendees will be taking the opportunity to travel around the country before and after the conference. People in pursuit of wine will take a trip to Mendoza. Those in search of adventure will go south to the Patagonia (that’s me).
Yet the main course will of course be the entire week of meeting Ethereum enthusiasts, talking about DeFi, privacy, decentralized AI, gaming, and all things that help build the bankless world.
If you do come to Devconnect, be sure to also come to the Bankless Summit, a one-day event of many speakers that you're already plenty familiar with from the podcast.
Bankless Summit is “TED Talks, for Ethereum” — strictly no panels. Every speaker is charged with giving their best, most interesting talk, so all you have to do is sit down and enjoy the high quality content! :D
Lastly, after the Summit is over, we’re going to Fede’s Wine Bar in Palermo for an evening party! It’s going to be so fun!
Come to Devonnect
Ethereum events are truly special. I was crypto-curious for about 6 months in 2017. But once I went to my first IRL Ethereum event, it took me two days to be convinced that I needed to work in Ethereum.
When the Ethereum community comes together to celebrate everything we’ve done, and share everything we know, and talk about the future we want to build… an irreplaceable, magical feeling emerges.
That’s why I go back every time, and it's why you should come to Buenos Aires.
If you want to know a bit more about Devconnect, I did a short interview with Nathan Sexer, who leads the events team at the EF, which you can watch here!
