The Good, Bad and Ugly of ETH Denver

It’s that time of year again—conference season is in full swing, and for one week, everyone committed to being IRL instead of online. As is tradition, prices tanked, lips cracked, builders built, hydration—both physical and financial—hit all-time lows, and side events once again outshined the main stage.

If you came looking for tangible crypto utility, you may have left empty-handed. If you came looking for this year’s forced meta, congratulations, you may have gotten more AI than you wanted. But it wasn’t all FUD and bad vibes!

Despite the annual cycle of FUD, there were glimmers of optimism. Ethereum unveiled long-overdue organizational shifts, institutions made their presence undeniable, and for the first time in years, real regulatory progress hinted at a future where token launches and fee switches don’t feel like forbidden magic.

But this is crypto, where debates rage, expectations misalign, and everyone obsesses over price action. Some people were bullish, some were bearish, but everyone left talking about Bitcoin’s nosedive from $95K to $78K while we were 5,280 feet above sea level.

Let's dig into the good, the bad, and the ugly of my experience at ETH Denver 2025 👇

🤩 The Good

1️⃣ Danny Ryan Interview

Back by popular demand, Danny Ryan! Immediately after announcing his position at Etherealize, he took the stage and reminded us all why we missed him. Honest, direct, and sharp, he cut through the noise with a message that felt like leadership. The Ethereum faithful hope he’s the one to get ETH back on track.

2️⃣ Sol Meme Szn Over? Fundamentals Back?

Are we rotating back to fundamentals? After months of down-only launches on Solana (RIP Melania and Milei), the sentiment at ETH Denver was split. 

Some are convinced memecoin mania will roar back once BTC nears all-time highs. Others see the tides shifting: Robinhood is here, JP Morgan is buying, stablecoins are growing, and BlackRock wants to tokenize everything. That’s DeFi, that’s fundamentals, and that’s what institutions are here for.

The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. Memecoin season will shift and persist, while institutions may dominate the next trend cycle. Either way, memecoins will continue to excite and annoy nearly everyone in this space.

3️⃣ AI Everywhere

In some ways, Denver felt more like an AI x Crypto x TradFi x Infra x Memes conference, not an ETH conference. It seemed as though half of the events either had AI, Decentralized AI, or DeAiFi in their title. 

What was abundantly clear was that AI is here and we can all agree it is going to make lasting changes to not just crypto but society as a whole.

AI Agents are going to evolve from social influencers to onchain users. Decentralized compute and data providers are positioning themselves to compete with the centralized big boys like OpenAI, Meta, and X. Crypto can provide private data alternatives, UBI rails, and composable building blocks for AI to thrive. This sentiment was shared across the entire conference, but some asked whether every project pivoting to Crypto x AI was authentic? Are these projects actually integrating AI or just LARPing their way into the hype cycle? The jury’s still out.

😤 The Bad

1️⃣ America Coins

A new trend is brewing: Trump-aligned projects. Some teams are bending the knee, chasing a chance at the Crypto President's meme-powered blessing. Many Ethereum OGs, present at ETH Denver, are holding the line and pushing for decentralization and cypherpunk ideals that don’t marry crypto with political lobbying. They shared this meme to show this shift over the last decade of ETH’s existence.

2️⃣ Over-Sponsored?

ETH Denver, like many conferences, is increasingly reliant on sponsorship money as ticket sales wane. The corporate creep is real, and the vibes are shifting accordingly. This post from Gidwell summed it up quite well.

😷 The Ugly

1️⃣ ETH Doom

The most viewed post re: ETH Denver was from the Founder of LayerZero Bryan Pellegrino where he mentions Max Resnick on the main stage describing how ETH is cooked and how he’s happily at Solana now. Max’s response suggests Bryan’s description wasn’t entirely accurate—but it was close enough to sting. Max was advocating for strategic pivots, but the frustration in the ETH camp is undeniable. Lagging performance, endless dunking, increasing competition, and fading momentum are wearing people down. Some arrived in Denver searching for hope. Many left without it.

My Verdict

The soul of Ethereum is at a crossroads. Some believe the network is poised for a renaissance with rejuvenated leadership, institutional buy-in, and regulatory clarity sparking a new golden era. Others fear Ethereum is becoming the slow, expensive, and over-governed chain it once sought to disrupt.

ETH Denver 2025 created a space for these two sides to strategize—on how Ethereum can win. How it can win despite the shifting realities of institutions, AI, tech, and the political atmosphere. So much has changed since ETH Denver 2024 and so much will change by ETH Denver 2026. Don’t blink, you just might miss it.