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Happy Friday. Fresh off the chaos of ETHDenver, I'm back with a head full of ideas, a wallet full of POAPs, and a few takeaways worth sharing. This was my first time attending - I was excited to make the most of all it had to offer and catch up with some college friends and professors in the city where I attended college. What a great reason to cash in some United miles and head back out West. Let’s get into it!
ETHDenver is one of the largest and most influential Ethereum and web3 hackathons globally. Since its launch in 2018, it has evolved from a grassroots gathering of developers and crypto enthusiasts into a premier conference attracting top builders, investors, and industry leaders. Notably, ETHDenver is community-funded and operates as a DAO - SporkDAO - reinforcing Ethereum’s ethos of decentralization.
The main conference, held in downtown Denver, features workshops, networking events, hackathons, and keynote speakers. Beyond the official programming, the city comes alive with independently organized side events hosted by crypto companies, nonprofits, and research labs. These range from panel discussions and meetups to sponsor-led parties, live music performances, art installations, and other cultural activations.
I attended ETHDenver alongside fellow members of an investing DAO I’ve been part of for several months. Our strategy was to divide and conquer, maximizing our exposure to promising founders and emerging projects - though naturally, there was some overlap. Given my personal interest in consumer crypto applications, I curated an agenda focused primarily on side events that aligned with our investment thesis. While there are undoubtedly compelling opportunities on the enterprise side, my focus remains firmly on consumer-facing innovation.
Here are some of the standout events I attended:
Social Everything by Lukso - I started my week on Tuesday with a walk east past Union Station and Coors Field to attend Social Everything, a side event organized by the team behind Lukso - a Layer 1 EVM blockchain designed specifically for creative industries like fashion, design, and lifestyle. Since launching its mainnet in 2020, Lukso has been working to bridge the gap between decentralized technology and the creative sector. The event featured panels and Q&A sessions covering topics such as decentralized identity, on-chain social platforms, and consumer crypto adoption, interspersed with ample opportunities for networking. The 15+ panelists brought diverse perspectives on culture, onboarding strategies, community-building, and the future of on-chain consumer experiences.
Stablecoin Panel by 57Blocks - Wednesday morning, I attended a stablecoin-focused event hosted by 57Blocks, a development studio and venture capital firm. The panel included executives from Paxos, Stellar, Rain, Borderless, and 57Blocks Capital, all of whom shared a deep sense of optimism about stablecoins’ potential to bridge the gap between traditional finance and crypto. Discussions centered on regulatory challenges, adoption hurdles, and technical innovations shaping the space. The energy in the room was palpable—everyone present recognized stablecoins as a critical component of crypto’s mainstream adoption.
IRL Tour by RefractionDAO - Later that evening, I attended an event at a downtown listening bar and gallery, co-hosted by WalletConnect, Reown, and RefractionDAO. The gathering featured an intimate DJ set by Miami-based artist Danny Daze, alongside curated visual installations from RefractionDAO exploring the intersection of digital identity and AI agents. Friends with Benefits, a well-known social DAO, also had a presence, reinforcing the event’s strong community-driven ethos.
Appchains by Syndicate & Alchemy - On Thursday, I attended an event co-hosted by Syndicate and Alchemy, focused on the role of appchains in scaling Ethereum and building a community-owned internet. Discussions highlighted the potential of appchains to drive greater decentralization, improve network efficiency, and enable more specialized blockchain applications.
Takeaways from the week...
The crypto industry currently has more problems than solutions: Many blockchain conferences, panel sessions, and Q&A events suffer from the same issue—participants spend a lot of time discussing and reiterating the industry’s biggest challenges but rarely present tangible, actionable solutions. Unfortunately, this was the case at most of the events I attended last week. That said, there were some positive exceptions, including companies doing live demos of their products and services and a handful of discussions that actually offered solutions.
Branding and reputation matter: We’re currently in a bear market, and I’d argue that there’s more negative press and signaling around Web3 during bear markets than there is positive press and signaling during bull markets. One upside to ETHDenver taking place in a bear market is that the attendees were largely those who are undeterred by crypto’s volatility and cyclical nature—builders who believe in the underlying technology and are focused on long-term innovation. The bear market naturally filters out the “casino” participants who, in a bull market, would be attending just to chase the next memecoin. A frequent question posed to panelists was how the “good actors” in the industry can reshape crypto’s reputation and move beyond narratives of speculation, volatility, and scandal. Responses varied, but a common theme was the need to educate non-crypto natives on blockchain’s underlying technology and make Web3 applications more accessible for everyday use.
Onboarding needs to be near frictionless: If - and it’s a big if - non-crypto natives are going to successfully onboard to Web3, then the entire onboarding process needs to be redesigned from the ground up. This was another recurring theme throughout the week: most blockchain developers are skilled at coding, building backends, and writing smart contracts, but they struggle with user experience and design. The reality is that Web3 has a steep learning curve, especially for non-technical users, meaning that developers and designers must take on the burden of making onboarding as seamless as possible. This includes addressing fiat onramps, wallet setup, fragmented infrastructure, and other points of friction. At Lukso’s event, the consensus was that 1) the industry needs a better ratio of developers to designers, and 2) intuitive user experience must be the north star. This is particularly crucial for consumer crypto - large TAMs only exist if and only if application companies can remove barriers to entry and streamline onboarding.
Stablecoins are so in, and are here to stay: The excitement around stablecoins was palpable. Beyond consumer crypto (assuming onboarding efficiency improves), I think that stablecoins represent one of the most promising and high-growth areas in the industry. Their use cases are real: cross-border remittances, DeFi applications, e-commerce, digital payments, and more. If you're a low-margin merchant losing money to Visa and Mastercard interchange fees, why wouldn’t you integrate stablecoins into your payment rail to bypass those duopolistic fees? The timing of recent developments in this space was perfect - the SEC just approved the first interest-bearing stablecoin, and Stripe’s year-end letter dedicated an entire section to stablecoins. Patrick and John Collison described them as “room-temperature superconductors for financial services,” adding that they are “the new branch of the money tree.” Stripe’s $1 billion acquisition of Bridge allows its customers to seamlessly integrate stablecoin features, a move that not only benefits Stripe’s rapidly expanding user base but also sets a strong precedent for industry-wide demand. Expect an explosion of innovation in stablecoins in the coming years.
When it comes to volume growth, quality is more important than quantity: One of the panelists on Tuesday made a great point about TVL. For background, total value locked (TVL) is a commonly-cited KPI that refers to the total dollar value of digital assets deposited or locked within a DeFi protocol or smart contract. The number represents the amount of capital users have committed to a platform for various activities and gauges the health and adoption of a web3 platform. The founder of 0xsoul had a great point - “web3 applications shouldn’t just be pursuing TVL growth for the sake of TVL growth, but making sure that all transactions are actually productive and that value is staying onchain in a circular way.” I thought this was an interesting take. The key takeaway is that web3 projects should prioritize sustainable, value-generating activity over superficial metrics like TVL. TVL can in fact indicate liquidity and user engagement, but chasing TVL growth without considering how that value circulates within the ecosystem can lead to extractive or unsustainable models. Web3 founders should instead focus on fostering circular economies where value is reinvested onchain, whether through staking, governance participation, funding new projects, or enabling P2P interactions. Productive transactions drive real utility, ensuring that blockchain-based systems are not just facilitating financial speculation but also supporting L-T economic and community growth.
People are nice: Crypto is often perceived as a cultish industry, with confusing jargon, technical gatekeeping, and an insider culture. It also tends to get a bad rap due to its association with speculation, scams and complexity. But on the ground in Denver, I found the opposite to be true - so many of the people I met were genuinely welcoming, social, and eager to share their knowledge. Whether at panels, side events, or casual meetups, there was an openness and excitement about onboarding new people into the space. The best conversations weren’t about price speculation or hype cycles, but about real innovation, vision, and meaningful projects. This energy made the week feel less like an insular industry event and more like a gathering of curious, driven people who want to push the space forward, together.
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Something becoming abundantly clear: AI won’t take your job. A 19 year old named Big Balls will.
