No signage outside the venue. No signage to the venue. Long lines with no clear direction. A bag check that had everyone quietly wondering if it was for guns. Speakers who weren’t showing up. Cement floors. Fluorescent nothing. Every vendor booth giving away sweatshirts like it was a 2017 ICO roadshow — all of them, in unison, as if someone had sent a memo.

I’ve seen this before. The first event I did for Alphapoint was 2017. Same energy. Same chaos dressed up as momentum. Same believers in a room that wasn’t ready for them.

That was eight years ago.

We should be ready by now. That’s the part nobody wants to say out loud.

And then she walked out.

Full leather. Five-inch heels. Elena Sinelnikova — co-founder of CryptoChicks, been building longer than most people in this room have had a wallet.

“Hello, I’m from the future.”

I believed her.

That’s the gap we don’t talk about enough. The delta between the future we’re performing and the infrastructure we’re actually standing on. The vision is real. The floor is still cement.

I came here not sure I’d have one meaningful conversation all week.

By the end of the day, I remembered why I keep coming back. The floor is still cement. The signs are still missing. But the energy in that room — that part is real.

Maybe that’s always been the point.

No signage outside the venue. No signage to the venue. Long lines with no clear direction. A bag check that had everyone quietly wondering if it was for guns. Speakers who weren’t showing up. Cement floors. Fluorescent nothing. Every vendor booth giving away sweatshirts like it was a 2017 ICO roadshow — all of them, in unison, as if someone had sent a memo.

I’ve seen this before. The first event I did for Alphapoint was 2017. Same energy. Same chaos dressed up as momentum. Same believers in a room that wasn’t ready for them.

That was eight years ago.

We should be ready by now. That’s the part nobody wants to say out loud.

And then she walked out.

Full leather. Five-inch heels. Elena Sinelnikova — co-founder of CryptoChicks, been building longer than most people in this room have had a wallet.

“Hello, I’m from the future.”

I believed her.

That’s the gap we don’t talk about enough. The delta between the future we’re performing and the infrastructure we’re actually standing on. The vision is real. The floor is still cement.

I came here not sure I’d have one meaningful conversation all week.

By the end of the day, I remembered why I keep coming back. The floor is still cement. The signs are still missing. But the energy in that room — that part is real.

Maybe that’s always been the point.