Everything You Missed at ETH Denver 2023
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Dear Bankless Nation,
Bankless Citizens, welcome! In case you missed it, as a paying subscriber to Bankless, you now have early access to our new website and will be receiving emails from this address going forward. So long, Substack!
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Now, back to our regular schedule. ETH Denver was last week, and it was electric. We unpack everything you missed and share what we experienced at the annual gathering of crypto believers.
- Bankless team
ETH Denver 2023 was Everything
Bankless Writer: David Hoffman
![](https://bankless.ghost.io/content/images/2024/02/https-3a-2f-2fsubstack-post-media-s3-amazonaws-com-2fpublic-2fimages-2ff4b81b96-0704-41b5-a858-c45a7675ef3f_2032x1073-png.jpg)
ETH Denver is basically Christmas.
Nothing gets me more excited than ETH Denver week. If you've been following Bankless, you know ETH Denver holds a special place in my heart. Attending the event in 2018 was the moment I decided I had to jettison all previous life plans, and full-ape into crypto.
My, what a 5 years it has been.
ETH Denver 2018 ETH Denver 2023 pic.twitter.com/fGvGrgRUTJ
— DavidHoffman.bedrock 🏴🦇🔊🔴_🔴 (@TrustlessState) March 5, 2023
ETH Denver has grown a ton. In 2018, it was a 5k-person event, with plastic folding table “booths” with branded tablecloths. Around 95% of the projects attending and sponsoring the 2018 ETH Denver event are gone, and the remaining 5% are now the core infrastructure of our industry, and their associated builders are insanely wealthy (and deservedly so!)
$ETH was ~$700 at ETH Denver 2018, up about 100x in a year. A year later, $ETH was $100, down 95% from its ATH.
Nonetheless, ETH Denver 2019 was a 2x in excitement, optimism, and signal. And so on, and so forth. Every single year, ETH Denver grows in size and strength, regardless of market conditions.
In the span of 5 short years, ETH Denver has grown from a 5k-person, 3-day hackathon, to a multi-week 16k-person conference, with 4k more coming for just the side-events.
It’s the largest and longest-running Ethereum conference, and its simply the best fucking time of the year.
I’ll stop gushing, and let’s get into the content. Like always, I go to conferences so you don’t have to! (even though you should!). For this conference, I brought my team in tow, and we were able to record over 20 interviews, spanning three hours of content. Some of it is already released; the rest will be out 🔜™.
Read on, and you’ll feel like you didn’t miss a thing!
✨The ETH Denver Video Series✨@TrustlessState goes to conferences so you don't have to!
— Bankless (@BanklessHQ) March 8, 2023
Bankless has 3 hours of content & 20 interviews🤯coming at you!
Part 1⃣ - The @axelarcore Interop Summit
8️⃣ Interviews w/ cross-chain interop builders, releasing in this thread!
🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/Hw8f7X3YBs
Side Events
ETH Denver has become so large, it has overflowed into an additional series of side events that were themselves larger than most conferences. It was impossible to experience all of ETH Denver; it was too large! ETH Denver was very much a choose-your-own-adventure, so below I’ll walk you through the adventure I found for myself.
For those who prioritize different things than I did, ETH Denver had plenty else to offer. Aptos, Sui, Cosmos, Holochain, DAODenver, Filecoin, Mina Protocol and Polkadot all had their respective events, and what I just listed were a fraction of everything that went down.
Monday and Tuesday - Axelar Interoperability Summit
The Interop Summit was a who’s who of chains, bridges, and abstraction infrastructure. I’ve recorded eight interviews with folks like Steven Goldfeder from Arbitrum, Sreeram from EigenLayer, Jordi from Polygon, and Ledger from UpOnly / Flip.xyz!
The focus of the Interop Summit was interesting. It was hosted by Axelar, a newer L1 that I’ve known about for a while, but hadn’t yet passed my (very high) bar for investigation. The Summit was all about connecting the worlds of Cosmos, all Ethereum L2s and L3s, and all the other chains too. Simply put, the subject matter was everything but the Ethereum L1 (and Bitcoin).
Check out the Bankless interviews from the Interop Summit!
What bear market? #InteropSummit pic.twitter.com/gF016xj6mu
— CosmosHOSS.eth (@CosmosHOSS) February 27, 2023
.@BanklessHQ loves IRL multi-chain content. Come say hi!
— luke =EVM= (@luke_spotlong) February 28, 2023
cc @sunnya97 @TrustlessState @daveefreiburger pic.twitter.com/mgFXPUBqjO
Tuesday - ZK Day
ZK Day was an entire day-long event centered around Zero-Knowledge tech. At ETH Denver 2018, there were maybe 3 talks about ZK tech. In 2023, there was an entire day-long event solely dedicated to it, one that was about as big as ETH Denver 2018 was as a whole.
Nerds rise! 🚀
Tell me everyone is ZK bullish without telling me they’re bullish.
— Irvin 104 🧁 (@irvinxyz) February 28, 2023
Packed house at zKDay Denver 💓 pic.twitter.com/RUbxyLohpk
The number of people in #ethdenver interested in zk is wild. 🔥 #zkday pic.twitter.com/bVD26hkZZs
— Jake Brukhman (@jbrukh) February 28, 2023
Interestingly, this event was dominated by representatives from Asia. I had never seen such a concentration of projects, teams, and community members from China, Japan, and Korea.
Also Tuesday - PoolyCon
A stones-throw away from ZK Day was PoolyCon. PoolyCon a day of celebration for the PoolTogether and Pooly NFT community, which attracted some of the deepest crypto OGs that Leighton and I have come to know ever since our mutual time in Ethereum.
Stumbled upon Poolycon at @EthereumDenver by chance and… I’m absolutely amazed by @PoolTogether_ ‘s team and community pic.twitter.com/AiovMcpuYQ
— 🔥 vanzoo (@vanzooeth) February 28, 2023
The Pooly movement has become the spearhead of defending DeFi against external attack after PoolTogether received a class-action lawsuit after someone claimed they “lost money” by paying the gas fee needed to use PoolTogether.
Wednesday - WalletCon
Wallets! They store your crypto. But really, they’re so much more. The long-term role that wallets will play in this world is that they represent you. Eventually, the lines between you and your wallet will blur.
WalletCon was a one-day event focused on that future state, and what all we need to do to get there.
#WalletCon2023 is happening now. 💥 #ETHDenver pic.twitter.com/Q0mxpgyslj
— WalletCon (@WalletCon_) March 1, 2023
We're bringing the wallet ecosystem together. 🤝#WalletCon2023 pic.twitter.com/Rcb64DrCFk
— WalletCon (@WalletCon_) March 1, 2023
WalletCon probably had the best website of all the ETH Denver side events. Wallets are a big subject of course, and the programming of WalletCon didn’t hold back. Identity, messaging, cross-chain UX, and account abstraction were all huge topics here, and WalletCon hosted one of the biggest announcements of the week: ERC4337 deployed to the Ethereum L1.
Smart Contract Wallets can now be built on the Ethereum L1!
The rumors are true... ERC-4337 has been deployed on mainnet 🚀
— erc4337 (@erc4337) March 2, 2023
🔍 Security audit by @OpenZeppelin
🛠️ Bundlers and paymasters by @stackup_fi, @AlchemyPlatform, @biconomy , @etherspot, @candidewallet, @blocknative & more
🏗️ $300K in grants by @ethereum pic.twitter.com/WOjMvaZe6M
Across is the bridge you deserve: fast speeds, low fees, great support, no hacks, and we love our users. Try it once and you’ll understand why Across users love us back and have bridged $billions with it. Yield farmers will also find attractive yields for providing bridge liquidity! 👀
Thur, Fri, and Sat - ETH Denver, Schelling Point, and ✨ Parties✨
By the time Thursday arrived, it felt like an entire conference had already passed, but we were just getting started!
It was time for ETH Denver to begin 🚀
The week of ETH Denver was too big for any one person to experience. But, the same thing could be said of ETH Denver itself.
ETH Denver’s size is size.
It was effing huge! So big in fact, that WiFi couldn’t reach the center… pic.twitter.com/KZbUcv0MST
— Chris 🦇🔊 🔜 ETH Denver (@slf_svrgn) March 4, 2023
There were a number of different strategies that you could take, in order to experience what ETH Denver had to offer. Some people played the swag game, trying to collect it all. Others mapped out all of the talks across all three days, and tried to absorb as much as possible. My preferred strategy was to mindlessly roam and see where the wind took me 😅
Schelling Point
There were plenty of side events at ETH Denver, and there were also events inside of events! Schelling Point was a one-day event hosted inside the ETH Denver conference.
Conference-ception!
SP good then, yeah? https://t.co/iJD27HWN8c pic.twitter.com/gfqOuaGoxT
— simona pop 🔥 (@Sim_Pop) March 3, 2023
Schelling Point is where I gave my talk: How Permissionless Protocol impacts Psychology! This talk will eventually become a full-production video on the Bankless YouTube 🔜™
"If you feel responsibility over something, you can make it through the worst. As long as you have something at the end of the tunnel, some light you have responsibility over, you can make it through the worst thing that's ever happened."
— schelling point ✨ (@schellingpoint_) March 2, 2023
-@TrustlessState on the Main Stage. pic.twitter.com/DjJ9LUzk8k
The Bankless Production Team was in full force at Schelling Point; 1.5 hrs of video content coming to YouTube soon!
Games, games, games
Gaming had a huge presence at ETH Denver. There were so many gaming PCs around the conference, all loaded up with high-quality games ready to demo. The sophistication of the games was high.
web3 gaming @ #ETHDenver.
— Zero Day Labs (@zdlabs) March 6, 2023
GN frens. Where our #Illuvium boys at @DickKingz pic.twitter.com/Bc6YDTpbD5
Walking by, a game caught my eye because of how similar it looked to the Dark Souls games (aka, the world’s best gaming series. \o/ Praise the Sun!)
I played it for a good 10 minutes, and while the movement is still kinda clunky, the game itself is gorgeous, and on par with AAA game graphics and immersion. I asked about what crypto elements are found in the game, and the founder said there is a Diablo or Borderlands-styled loot system, in which every item dropped in-game is an NFT, along with an in-game ERC20 currency.
I had no idea we were this far along.
𝔸𝕃ℙℍ𝔸 𝔻𝔼𝕄𝕆
— The Fabled (@TheFabled) December 27, 2022
The Fabled Alpha Demo is Live for Mintpass & Mintkey holders⚔️
Retweet this for a chance to get on the Whitelist!
Join our discord & become a part of our growing community + earn exclusive prizes!
Link in Bio#web3 #gamefi #gaming pic.twitter.com/m0KuiE8wVB
Community IRL
The Bankless Nation had its first-ever IRL meetup!
150 people came out to a secret meetup, shared only among Citizens of the Bankless Nation (out of fear of being overwhelmed), and we had a blast.
As a known crybaby, it was hard to not get choked up from the appreciation, love, and energy found at the Bankless meetup.
In 2018, I left the very known and safe path of graduate school, to venture off alone into an unknown frontier. In 2023, I was surrounded by 150 people who all cared enough about the Bankless movement to show up and share stories with other frontiersmen and frontierswomen.
Perhaps the free beer helped too 🍻
ETH Denver 2018 ETH Denver 2023 pic.twitter.com/fGvGrgRUTJ
— DavidHoffman.bedrock 🏴🦇🔊🔴_🔴 (@TrustlessState) March 5, 2023
Swag & Drip
Swag is kinda a big deal. Swag is a competition. Which teams can get you to wear their swag over someone else’s?
Every team wants your attention, and every team wants you to wear their brand. So, they bring swag! They want to attract you to their booth and get you to wear their banner!
There were two clear standout winners here.
Lens and Boys Club.
No better way to close out #ETHDenver than with our lens frens 😉 @LensProtocol swag hitting different in the mile high city! 🏔️
— Dom (@dom_kwok) March 5, 2023
@Rahatcodes @tonyolendo @razacodes pic.twitter.com/X0PMs0x7vo
While Lens takes the #1 spot of people wearing their swag, I think Boys Club takes the overall winner, because people were actually paying money to strut Boys Club attire.
![](https://bankless.ghost.io/content/images/2024/02/https-3a-2f-2fsubstack-post-media-s3-amazonaws-com-2fpublic-2fimages-2fe75e1a8d-0b7d-4d19-a49b-48d53842b9e6_888x1151-png-1.jpg)
I’m personally guilty of selling some ETH for some Boys Club swag.
a DeFi Daddy attestation by @TrustlessState
— BoysClub.eth (@BoysClubCrypto) March 4, 2023
(Mediums are gone, come soon.) pic.twitter.com/kd1CNVf4KL
Okay, swag is cool. But what about Drip?
Just cause crypto-people are nerds doesn’t mean we have bad fashion. In fact, I’d say crypto-fashion has found its own frontier.
Dispatch Drip: ETHDenver edition pic.twitter.com/EE1tbN6V5S
— Dispatch 🔜 SXSW (@DispatchXYZ) March 5, 2023
I may be biased here, but I declare the MetaFactory x Bankless jacket I was rocking all week was perhaps the drippiest thing at ETH Denver. A total of 60 of these are currently in production 🔜™
nice jacket!david @TrustlessState #WalletCon2023 @WalletCon_ pic.twitter.com/WBy1ofToaU
— 阿伟 Awaei (@web3awaei) March 1, 2023
Parties!
Once again, just because crypto nerds are nerds doesn’t mean we don’t party. Parties are a core feature of all conferences, and ETH Denver was no exception😁
1inch parties are known to be pretty degen. ETH Denver’s was relatively tame 😅
📹 Enjoy some exclusive highlights from the #1inch's Unicorn Ugly party at @EthereumDenver.
— 1inch Network (@1inch) March 7, 2023
That night was tough 🤤
👀 Don't take our word for it. WATCH!#1inchEvents #DeFi pic.twitter.com/8wpSs1SzFI
Boys Club & Aave teamed up to throw a party that had 1,600 people on the waitlist. Lo-fi vibes, house party energy, and the highest of fashion.
![](https://bankless.ghost.io/content/images/2024/02/https-3a-2f-2fsubstack-post-media-s3-amazonaws-com-2fpublic-2fimages-2f90cc9e18-5faf-48c5-871d-e38f887d6707_4779x3188-jpeg-1.jpg)
Cooper Turley threw a Music NFT party that had the entire building shaking.
Music NFT Kickback Recap 🎦
— Coopahtroopa 🔥_🔥 (@Cooopahtroopa) March 7, 2023
Performances from @imdanielallan @bloodywhxte @dotmvsic @cleareyesmusic_ @EvaMyraMay
Sponsored by @cooprecordsxyz @soundxyz_ @spin_amp @lnrzdao
Video by @Kyle_Billings 🔽 pic.twitter.com/xpa22tnIdL
Conferences - A Conclusion
I’ve never been to a conference in any other industry outside of crypto, so I can’t really speak to those experiences. But, I’ll claim without counter-evidence that there’s really nothing like a crypto-conference.
The combination of community, culture, knowledge sharing and investment alpha can’t be found anywhere else in this world.
I personally notice myself becoming ‘spiritually alive’ during conference weeks, and the afterglow lasts for weeks afterward. Conferences are when the magical optimism and enthusiasm that people have for crypto erupts IRL, in a grand festival of all the things that make crypto fun and make life good.
My only hope is that this culture and feeling can be scaled out globally to the entire world, as soon as we can learn to scale our protocols to get there.
Try Rhino.fi Today 🦏