Hi, I'm Brenda Hidalgo, and I'm excited to share my recent experience participating in one of the world's largest Web3 Ecosystem events, organized by the Ethereum Foundation.

A few months ago, my life took a turn when I was selected as a scholarship for the Ethereum Devconnect Scholars Program 2025. Imagine: an email from the Ethereum Foundation confirming that everything was ready for this incredible experience, which included flights, accommodation, tickets, and much more, for me and 90 other scholarship from around the world.

It wasn't just a trip; it was an open door to discovering more of the ecosystem that has given me enormous personal and professional satisfaction. I was thrilled!

From November 17th to 22nd, 2025, we celebrated the biggest Ethereum event to date in Buenos Aires: the first-ever Ethereum World's Fair. More than 15,000 people from 130 countries converged at La Rural, injecting over $50 million into the Buenos Aires economy, which welcomed us with such warmth and enthusiasm.

As a scholarship, I didn't just attend; I experienced it with the intensity of someone who knows this could redefine my career in the on-chain ecosystem.

Arriving in Buenos Aires was like stepping into a live node of the Ethereum network; the city, with its orderly chaos of tree-lined avenues and empanadas that delight any foreigner, greeted me with radiant, decentralized sunshine.

Thanks to the scholarship program—which selected 100 emerging leaders like myself, focused on geographic and demographic diversity—I spent three months in virtual co-learning sessions. I learned more from the perspectives of my fellow Ethereum builders, and we discussed everything from public regulations to on-chain art. All of this set the perfect stage for a week that was more than just talks; it was an immersion into the future of Ethereum.

Experiencing the fair: Districts leading the way Web3

Organized by the Ethereum Foundation with an impeccable local touch, collaborating with communities like "Mujeres en Crypto" and "Crecimiento" to ensure inclusion, Devconnect wasn't a traditional conference; it was a global fair where Ethereum stepped out of code and landed in the physical world.

Eight themed districts transformed La Rural into a hub of tangible innovation:

1. DeFi with vaults and stablecoins that democratize yield farming

2. Social, with DAOs and sovereign identities

3. Hardware & Wallets, showcasing self-custody in everyday devices

4. Privacy, an oasis of ZK and FHE that reminded me why sovereignty is the true fuel of financial freedom

5. Gaming, with latency-free on-chain assets

6. AI, exploring autonomous agents

7. L2/zK/scaling, the heart of the roadmap

8. Collectibles, merging art and NFTs into cultural experiences

In the Privacy district, I saw demos of RAILGUN in action: private transactions that protect not only "whales," but everyday users in volatile economies like ours in Latin America.

I was struck by how Ethereum is evolving from a poetic "Infinite Garden" to a competitive "ladder," as described by the EF Co-CEO: stabilizing developers while scaling to billions of users.

And in AI, Trustless Agent Day blew my mind—discussions about ERC-8004 and x402 for agent-to-agent payments, where the blockchain becomes the coordination layer for an autonomous economy. Imagine agents buying, selling, and investing without human intervention; silicon-based lifeforms roaring on the network (something that's more than a trend, it's reality).
Something else that caught my attention were the side events: more than 500 organized by the community, from hackathons to after-parties, listed on calendars like Luma and Solow.

I participated in several, balancing the main stage with off-site vibes.

On Monday the 17th, I kicked things off with ETHDay at La Rural (9 AM to 7 PM), an official EF opener with onboarding for newbies and quests in the Devconnect app. I minted my first POAP while paying for a choripán with USDC.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I immersed myself in Trustless Agent Day (part of the 40 internal deep-dive events), where Davide Crapis from EF broke down ERC-8004 and x402 for agent-to-agent payments. I saw demos of autonomous agents buying and selling without human intervention.

I listened to presentations about the Argentine context of hyperinflation and how stablecoins like USDC and USDT have become real lifelines. For our Latin American sister countries, this is a benchmark and an important aspect of current DeFi growth.

Danny Ryan from EF demystified institutional privacy, and Paul Brody from Coinbase illuminated the regulatory momentum in Latin America.
Not forgetting that we had our first in-person meeting with the interns and were finally able to say hello!

I also attended other talks about diversity in Web3 and networked with women builders from Latin America. Interestingly, I ran into the Berachain team and a large delegation of builders from Brazil. I danced with Boys Club and KAST at some after-parties with on-chain music and very interesting conversations.

Brands like Gnosis, Scroll, Octant, Sora, Morpho, Aave, Fileverse, Stellar, and others sponsored vibrant spaces, while projects like Uniswap (with its epic Unicup) and Lemon (Latin American Fintechs) demonstrated real adoption.

And let's not forget the highlight that filled the entire main auditorium: Vitalik Buterin's talk on the Ethereum 2025-2027 Technical Roadmap.

In addition to other guests like Davide Crapis and builders from Obol who raised the bar, proving that Ethereum is not just code: it's resilience to price drops (ETH fell 20-30% that week, but community FOMO reached its peak)

DeFi and RWAs: If you attend an event like this, choose what you want to learn about.

As an intern interested in DeFi and RWAs, I explored various areas of the DeFi district at La Rural: live vaults, stablecoins, collateralization, hedging, and demos of lending protocols that scream "financial sovereignty."

But the DeFi and RWA side events were the real show, capturing insights and learning much more about the diverse solutions that creative minds are developing for the benefit of the ecosystem.

I attended several forums where on-chain finance intersects with institutional liquidity: talks about RWA protocols tokenizing Latin American sovereign bonds and infra yields for funds.
I connected with builders and we discussed how to tokenize real assets like coffee in Africa, the recently introduced yerba mate in Argentina, and my dream of tokenizing asparagus from my hometown in Ica, Peru.

The Stable Summit was another space that broadened my horizons: a focus on stablecoin adoption in Latin America. I learned how these rails protect savings from inflation, with USDT acting as a peer-to-peer lifeline.

In another session, Aave launched "The New Architecture of Credit" in the district, revealing its unified interface and a product for defragmenting liquidity from market makers.

My takeaway: Mature DeFi isn't just about composability; it's about capital efficiency with privacy.

On the 20th, DeFi Dialogs was my DeFi wrap-up: protocol design, meta-tokens, leveraged staking, Danny Ryan's talk "Institutions and Decentralization," along with the tokenization of Andean commodities for on-chain yields.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to see so many founders from all continents presenting their projects, emphasizing insights, traction, and other key aspects to a curious audience. To list just a few: Luca, MynaWallet, NEDApay, NEURODEX, RAPIXCHANGE, AeroNavigator, paycrest, Hypersurface, BTCFi, EFFISEND and many more.

More chains for Latin America, hearts that build

From Buenos Aires, I returned to my Peru with a clear conviction: to scale what I experienced at Ethereum DevConnect. My learnings will serve me well, focused on educating more people, companies, and communities, and continuing to contribute to making solutions born from diverse needs so accessible and promising that they lead us to generate wealth using technology with purpose.

Fortunately, the vision for Web3 is quite broad, and its impact is growing stronger.

I'm excited to get involved with my team at HISPAX, our startup that is building a powerful Web3 financial ecosystem integrating decentralized payment solutions, tokenization, and more. I'm also excited to collaborate with the people and companies I met; just like the blockchain works, each of us is a piece or block that can accelerate, strengthen, and extend our impact in every country, without limits.

I saw firsthand that we have talent, we have opportunities, and with technology, we're moving forward!

Here are some recommendations for your next first global Ethereum event

If you're new to this—a curious developer, an on-chain artist, or a skeptical policymaker—I'm telling you, go to Devconnect.

But prepare in advance.

My advice: Join a similar Scholar Program (apply for next year's!); focus on 2 or 3 key areas or topics for you, otherwise you'll experience some burnout; then, I advise you to prioritize small side events because that's where real connections are made, not in merch queues, or well, maybe there, but very briefly.
Bring questions that explore discovery and conceptual development, not just something cold like "what do you work on?" or "something very techy": Ask inquisitive questions like, "How does Ethereum solve a specific problem in my country or region?"

Don't be afraid to admit that there are still scenarios that are complex for you. This happened to me with some very technical talks that left me with a glossary of words I still need to look up. The simple solution came when I chatted with the audience members at the same talk. It was as simple as, "What does this or that mean? Did you understand? Could you explain it to me, please?"

Oh, and don't forget to enjoy yourself, walk around, eat, and take photos, even if you never post them. You'll smile at the memory of what you experienced, and that in itself is valuable.

Argentina wasn't just an event; it was a beautiful story that I now connect with my experience in web3, and it gives me a dose of inspiration and optimism to bring many of the projects I have in mind to fruition. Like the title of this blog post, "Connecting Hearts with Technology," I could also say that we connected dreamers with the fantastic Ethereum DevConnect Scholars Program. A thousand thanks for making it possible for all the scholarship recipients.

See you soon, until the next edition!

Brenda Hidalgo Geldres.