After a long and cold bear market, it is safe to say that spring has sprung at ETHDenver with energy, excitement, and quality at its highest in a long time. It was apparent that the vast majority of people who attended stuck it out over the past few years and newbies and tourists were at a minimum. This type of crowd anatomy made for a delightful experience relative to the past iterations of the yearly convention. And from this time around, my biggest takeaways are:

Side Events Take Center Stage

Sporkwhales and bufficorns alike made way for a plethora of side events and summits both before and after the main show. Side events are not new, but the scale and variety of them this year blew any previous conference out of the water. Whether it was the single day conferences like Appchain Day, unStable Summit, and the massive showing at Berapoolza or the booth areas becoming mini-stages of themselves, it seems like sectors and projects are starting to get creative with how to spread their message which I expect to only get more intricate from here.

As for the main event, kudos to the organizers for having a much less anxiety-inducing layout. The Nation Western proved itself to be a fitting venue for the occasion and overall the venue was much easier to navigate. And for those who complain about Denver being the host city, if you don’t like it then don’t come next year. There is something special about Denver that makes it different from the usual conference circuit cities like New York, London, Singapore, and Dubai. The elements that make up the city at this time of year attract a more builder-centric crowd which is something I welcome.

Stablecoins and DeFi Are Growing Up

As the host of unStable Summit, one thing that was evident to me was that DeFi had reached a new level of maturity. A majority of the panels revolved around assets in the real world and regulation, and after years of stablecoin experimentation, the conclusion is that for stablecoins to scale safely and attract assets, they need to incorporate RWAs in some form. Stablecoins have always been the "adult in the room" in crypto because not only do they require technical and economic understandings, but they are the most widely used and practical use case in the space. Now it seems that DeFi is catching up. Although these areas may not be as exciting as the shiny new thing, their resilience through the most volatile of times shows that they are not going anywhere. And with talks of the ETH ETF on the horizon, I expect more TradFi people to recognize the power of stablecoins and DeFi alike.

M2 > L2: How Fraxtal is Poised to Become the Settlement Layer of Crypto

Sam Kazemian was quite busy this week with multiple keynote speaking engagements including taking the main stage at ETHDenver. In his speeches, he declared that “Chains are the new smart contracts” he says and while competition is fierce at the DA layer (Celestia, EigenLayer DA, etc.) and the execution layer (OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, etc.), Fraxtal is the only rollup which is primed to take the settlement layer a la it's M2 liabilities. 

What does this all mean? Well, for the past few years, Frax has been building lindy in its stablecoins whether its FRAX at $650 million+ in circulation or frxETH with over $1 billion in TVL across multiple chains. As more and more “Fraxtals” are deployed and integrated in all kinds of chains and rollups, then they will be allowed to settled to the main Fraxtal itself. This essentially eliminates bridging risk and allows Frax to scale the settlement layer more than any other stablecoin. Fraxtal is currently live with the snapshot eminent, it will be the first distribution of FXTL points via the Flox mechanism, a first of its kind incentives distributor that rewards users and smart contracts via a Google PageRank like algorithm.

RFK JR Aligns With Crypto For This Upcoming Election

One of the coolest experiences of the conference for me was being invited to the RFK JR press conference. RFK JR is running as an independent candidate and has been making a genuine effort to reach the crypto crowd. A phrase that stood out which he kept repeating was his belief in “transactional freedom” and how people should be free to transact without limitation or even taxation for smaller purchases. In addition, he stated “I would say that the federal government at this point is making a war on cryptocurrencies and is doing everything that it can possibly do to end the innovation in cryptocurrencies. The impact is that it is driving crypto offshore. It's trying to get to Asia and parts of Europe. As President, I'm going to make this country the hub of cryptocurrency, blockchain and stablecoin innovation in the world.” I would be curious to see how his crypto policy evolves and if it will expand to include Ethereum and stablecoins in it specifically.

AI Everywhere

One could not escape the conversation surrounding AI. Although at first glance it may seem gimmicky or even a desperate attempt to hop on a narrative, but it became clear that were some real applications at the intersection of Crypto x AI. For example, Akash Network founder Greg Osuri in his presentation showed how one could lease GPUs through his protocol. GPUs are in incredibly short supply so having a way to lease them gives the little guy a chance to cook in their machine learning endeavors. Furthermore, Erik Voorhees, an OG who has been around the space since 2011 and is currently a contributor to the AI project Morpheus, said in his panel that in the same way the blockchains enable self-sovereign money, blockchains can enable self-sovereign intelligence as well. The threat of centralized AI companies is more potent and looming than ever since they will not only have access to an infinite amount of data but will be able utilize it for who knows what. We don’t know because of the opaque nature of training LLMs but decentralized AI has a chance to flip that on its head. Projects like Bittensor and Morpheous have sprung up an underground army of enthusiasts dedicated to ensuring that decentralized AI is as if not more powerful than its centralized counterpart. Expect attention and mindshare to only increase in this area.

Conclusion

As I battle the ETHDenver sickness finishing this article, I cannot be more thankful for the opportunity to see friends and learn about what are the latest developments in our growing industry. With BTC at the cusp of an all-time high, I can't help but wonder what next year may bring. But for now, I treasure the moment of all of us coming up together and hope that as we scale that we do not lose our core ethos of self-sovereignty and open collaboration. These two concepts are at its core what makes crypto "crypto" and without it, we may just well go back to our old ways. Anyways, I'll see you at the next one 🫡