{"id":377070,"date":"2025-03-01T11:55:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T06:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/inside-day-1-at-ethdenver-2025-crypto-news\/"},"modified":"2025-03-01T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T06:30:00","slug":"inside-day-1-at-ethdenver-2025-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/inside-day-1-at-ethdenver-2025-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside day 1 at ETHDenver 2025 – Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <\/em>subscribe<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Yesterday was day one of ETHDenver.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The price of ETH was ~$2,300. People here must be depressed, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eh, not really. I must\u2019ve had 20 conversations yesterday and maybe one person mentioned market prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With about 18,000 attendees coming into the city, ETHDenver is still the largest free-of-charge Ethereum-centric event next to Devcon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The event kicked off with the folkiest of folk songs brought to you by Jonathan \u201cA Song A Day\u201d Mann<\/a>. Think \u201cfeminized wef soyboy mentality<\/a>\u201d vibes that Solana DeFi bronze age spartans would probably cringe at.<\/p>\n

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Oh, and apparently people are complaining that ETHDenver is not so \u201cEthereum-aligned\u201d anymore because there are non-Ethereum sponsors?<\/p>\n

So salient is the criticism that ETHDenver founder John Paller felt the need to address it at the festival\u2019s opening.<\/p>\n

\u201c95%+ of our sponsors and 90% of our content is ETH, EVM or ETH aligned \ud83d\ude18\ud83d\ude18\ud83d\ude18,\u201d his slide deck read.<\/p>\n

Step into the main conference hall and you\u2019re greeted with large booths representing Uniswap, Arbitrum and Coinbase.<\/p>\n

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Picture taken on day one event closure<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

There\u2019s a markedly more professional vibe to ETHDenver this year, founder of Yap Global and ETHDenver\u2019s official PR partner Samantha Yap told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cETHDenver in its earlier years was more scrappy. This year, booths are spending a lot more money and there\u2019s a greater professionalization of the event. The industry is evolving,\u201d Yap said.<\/p>\n

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There also doesn\u2019t seem to be just one dominant overarching narrative this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike last year<\/a>, where EigenLayer and restaking dominated the agenda, there\u2019s pretty much a sprinkle of anything you could think of: DePIN, AI agents, regulation, RWAs, privacy and \u2014 of course \u2014 interoperability. Ethereum loves<\/em> interop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conferences are often chock-full of panels and fireside chats, speakers armed with their sometimes dreary PR-approved speeches. Standing out on the day one agenda was a spicy debate between Haseeb Qureshi from Dragonfly Capital and Matt O\u2019Connor at Legion, on the topic of ICOs vs. venture capital funding. Legion is an ICO-like fundraising platform.<\/p>\n

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Matt: \u201cThe idea that VCs are catalyzing growth and the product\u2019s purpose to begin with\u2026this gatekeeping and holier-than-thou attitude of VCs knowing which projects to fund leads to less experimentation and variety of what\u2019s backed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haseeb: \u201cIt\u2019s rich since Legion raised money from VCs\u2026and how many individual users using Legion own equity in Legion? I\u2019m going to assume the number is zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, here are some key launches from yesterday:<\/p>\n