Devcon week in Bangkok is over, and since I have some free time, I thought I would give my thoughts on the week for those who couldn’t attend. This may also be helpful for folks who were actually here but had different experiences than I did.

I was beyond excited for this year’s Devcon to be in Bangkok since the moment I heard about it. I had been planning a trip to Thailand for multiple months leading up to the announcement. The location, people, and Ethereum truly showed up to be the top ETH event of the year.

The two other events I went to this year, ETHDenver and FWB Fest, were in stark contrast to what was on offer at Devcon (this was my first Devcon, so I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect). ETHDenver had endless booths with scattered narratives and felt more like a baby expo with an attached hackathon, while FWB Fest is all about culture creation and cultivation. I learned more about the entirety of the Ethereum ecosystem in one week at Devcon than in the 3+ years I’ve been working in crypto. That’s a massive win in my book.

Not only was Devcon one of the coolest events I’ve attended, it actually did a few of the things I’ve wanted the space to embrace: community hubs, attendee participation, side classrooms, and a large enough venue that would hold all 12,000 people attending even if there were no side events (will definitely give some hot takes on side events in a bit). Overall, I didn’t get a chance to see nearly as many talks as I wanted, but thankfully, they’re all on the Ethereum Foundation YouTube channel and were released so quickly that anyone could follow along from home!

If you saw me anywhere around the city, I likely introduced myself with something along the lines of “Hi, I run an Ethereum magazine.” - the level of interest and appreciation for the work we’re doing at ETH Investors Club is so loved, and I enjoyed each opportunity to get to know what people are building! I spoke about EIC at the Creator Hub, check out the recording here!

My main takeaway from Devcon: The world is in such an uncertain, chaotic state, and while not one of us can make enough change to alter these events, when we work together to build a better internet that brings decentralized money and a world computer to everyone we all become a significant force for good. The EF delivered on and exceeded expectations.

This is just a sort of basic overview, but if you’d like more thoughts on something specific, please feel welcome to send me a message on Warpcast, Twitter, or TG for more chats about the week or anything else I’m working on!

The Main Event

I’ll say it - Devcon is the absolute best main event that Ethereum puts on. For the fact that the venue is gigantic, it could have held everyone that came to Bangkok this week with no problem. For me, that’s the whole point, to spend as much time at a highly valuable main event. More Ethereum events should take note of the features on offer:

Audience Interaction: Q&A sessions at the end of talks were facilitated by DIP-45: Meerkat, an upvoting system for surfacing the best questions to ask.

Community Hubs: While I participated in the Onchain Creator Hub, there were many more community-organized hubs hosted by experts on-site for curating sessions each day. Check out all the other Community Hubs here, where you’ll find info on AA Hub, Gardeners Hub, Governance Hub, DeSci Hub, and many more. A very special thank you is in order for Isaac and Kitty for organizing the Onchain Creator Hub. I believe every single main ETH conference should have meaningful community hubs!

Classrooms & Workshops: I loved that there were so many little side rooms you could pop into for demos, discussions, and workshops on various things being developed. On the ground floor, you’d find a massive area called Hacker Cove, a Decompression Room to unwind and relax (with free massages, too), treasure hunts, and so much more to explore.

D/acc Day

My favorite of the community session event days was d/acc day on the 2nd floor of the venue. A whole day dedicated to decentralization, democracy, differential accelerated progress, and defensive tech.

Watch the d/acc talks here

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Outside the main talk area, there were free masks and a couple of vendors. One of these vendors had created a device called ucritter to monitor air quality levels but made it into a pet simulator. Sadly, I didn’t get to take one home, but you should definitely check it out! D/acc day, from what I could tell, had a major focus on disease defense and prevention, vaccines, and science acceleration.

Side Events

My hottest take of the week is that side events are becoming increasingly less worthwhile and more of a waste of money UNLESS done really well. While I didn’t get to go to all of them, from what I did see and hear, the ones that had the best reception were Aggregation Summit, frENS Day, g(t)m con, Bankless Summit, and Ethereum Interop Forum. These all had one thing in common: they were all-day affairs bringing the top industry experts together for discussions, panels, and extremely focused talks.

My personal favorite side events will always be the ones that are significantly less crowded (Aave DeFi Day, for example, was nice but extremely overcrowded). Examples of these smaller, less crowded side events I attended were Starknet + Hype Marketers Happy Hour and g(t)m con (less crowded because it was in a large room w/ seats). I was so honored to get a 1:1 demo of Cookie3 by Krystyna at the Starknet Marketers Happy Hour. That’s the kind of thing you can’t do at most side events!

Lessons event organizers should learn (and are obvious tbh): curated attendance is really important - I saw so many people at events only there to hawk conversations to do BD rather than learn or literally anything else.

There’s a lot of… weird stuff going on in the marketing space, but the absolute stars of the week are Emily and Reka, hands down the most competent, compelling, kind, brilliant marketers to grace Ethereum. They both bring valuable insights literally everywhere they go. If you don’t already know them, you need to fix that asap! One thing I’ll add here that is relevant is a note that you don’t need to shitpost 24/7 on CT to be well-loved, and your insights go a long way for your credibility by actually being nice and supportive.

I also attended two Serotonin events, the full moon festival, and one lunch session on stablecoins. I love the Serotonin team so much, and I’d like to give a very special shoutout to Yuna and Will for chatting and being SO kind. Everyone on the Sero team is top-notch and really proves how much value they add to the ecosystem as an agency.

In Bangkok

I’m loving Bangkok so far! This was actually my first time leaving the US, so it was definitely a moment to remember. I think this city is one of the most perfect locations for a massive conference: diversity of transportation, amazing food options, happy people, and an abundance of massages for tired feet after a long day of walking.

Bangkok is such a picturesque city with a new story to unveil on every corner. I hope to write more about my adventures over the next few weeks here, so hopefully, you stay tuned for that, too! And if you’re still around, lmk maybe we can meet up for Thai tea and mangos!