#345: Devcon 2024 Recap
🏗️ A conference for builders of all types
Did you miss me? I’m back from Asia, spending a week at Devcon and another week in Japan. Because if I’m going to fly halfway around the world, might as well spend a little more time there!
Devcon was my first international industry event, first conference during a bull market (hope I don’t jinx it..), and first time riding Grab bikes weaving through Bangkok traffic with the occasional feeling of my life flashing before my eyes while inhaling exhaust fumes 😂 Overall, it was a great experience and I can’t wait for the next one!
The conference by the numbers:
12,500+ attendees
130 countries represented
This was the first Devcon for 60% of attendees
300+ hours of content, which you can access for free
Themes
Devcon is for the devs
Duh. Devcon is put up (operationally and financially) by the Ethereum Foundation (EF) every other year, so the setup is different from other industry conferences. You don’t see company logos plastered everywhere, and booths were largely replaced with Community Hubs with specific areas of focus such as onchain creators, women in web3, DeFi, Hacktivism, account abstraction, and more.
It was a refreshing experience as almost all conferences have a necessary sponsorship dynamic, while Devcon has the privilege of not needing this at their events.
And if you aren’t a dev (aka me), it was still worth going to the main event as there were still plenty of talks, topics, and people that were worth engaging with.
Side events galore
And for those who didn’t attend the main event, it’s understandable because there were over 1,000 side events leading up to and during Devcon. Although the whole side event vs. main event phenomenon isn’t unique to crypto, it feels more pronounced, especially with Ethereum-focused events.
Side events weren’t just your typical evening Happy Hours or nighttime clubbing events. Some were all-day, multi-day, and spanned across non-Ethereum ecosystems. For example, if I type in Bitcoin into the side events directory (shoutout 0xsmit for creating this!), I get over a dozen events. Type in Solana or Sui and you get several hits as well.
Ethereum is still the premiere ecosystem for crypto developers, so vampire attacking Devcon to acquire crypto’s scarcest resource (spoiler alert: the scarcest resource in crypto isn’t attention, it’s developers) is a worthwhile strategy.
I find this main event vs. side event tension interesting. Will there be a conference in the future that gets overwhelmed by side events to the point where putting up the main event becomes financially untenable? Will event organizers become more discerning with where they hold their events to indirectly limit the number of side events that can physically be held?
For example, EthCC 2025 (Ethereum Community Conference) will be held in Cannes, France and it ain’t cheap.
Does this geographical decision create a better event because attendees will more likely congregate at the main event instead of being scattered across dozens or hundreds of other side events?
Or would the location’s cost prohibitiveness lead to a lack of interesting side events and ultimately a less vibrant main event?
More growth-focused side events
Since attending my first growth side event at Eth Denver earlier this year, more growth and marketing-focused events have popped up and Devcon featured several side events focused on these disciplines such as g(t)m con by Claire Kart of Aztec, Growth Con by Kaito, and a marketer-specific happy hour hosted by Hype.
These types of events are great to see as they’re a sign that the industry is growing and needs people who are focused on the things builders and developers typically don’t like to deal with.
As the industry grows, there will be multiday conferences dedicated to marketing and growth in the next few years. The best comp for this based on personal experience is in the mobile growth space, with events like Mobile Apps Unlocked and Mobile Growth Summit becoming a mainstay for mobile growth practitioners.
Ethereum does and doesn’t have a marketing problem
Before I elaborate on this theme, I want to reiterate that everything I’ve written in this publication is my opinion, and you’ll see why shortly 😉
Ethereum as an ecosystem and blockchain has experienced tremendous success over the past 10 years and has been able to stay true to its principles, growing from a small but ambitious community and vision to a rich ecosystem that is quite literally impacting society through how it can and will operate.
Regarding Ethereum’s approach to marketing, it has an unfair advantage because there isn’t just one team working on it or any other efforts for that matter. Josh Stark, who sits on the leadership team of the Ethereum Foundation, describes it well (in this case for BD).
And from this lens, Ethereum has 100 marketing teams as well💥
On the other hand, one can argue Ethereum has a marketing problem. More specifically around the role the function plays, how the function itself is viewed, and how it is strategically important for the next leg of growth for the ecosystem.
The role of marketing the function
The EF doesn’t have ‘marketing’ roles because these responsibilities are grouped into other roles such as ecosystem (via Ecosystem Support Program, or ESP), communications, events, etc. That’s fine for the most part.
How marketing the function is viewed
This is a larger concern but also one where I get both sides. Marketing is messy, especially if you go on social media and look at the timeline. A lot of the great work being done by legit marketing and growth folks often gets overshadowed by influencers/KOLs focused on maximizing engagement, best in class tactics/strategies that end up as rug pulls, and efforts that support projects that aren’t as aligned with the EF’s core ethos.
As a result you get interactions like this, which are understandably disheartening. And this stemmed from the original post from Claire regarding EthCC being held in Cannes.
How marketing the function is strategically important for the next leg of growth for the ecosystem
The saying ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ applies to the EF’s approach towards growth and is valid. Focus on infrastructure, credible neutrality, and public goods, which is great!
However, the bigger the surface area for impact, the larger the risks. An example of this is Justin Drake’s Beam Chain announcement (TLDR here). This is a proposal so nothing is set in stone, but for non-technical folks or casual observers from other ecosystems, the main takeaway is that this will take 5 years to complete which is basically a century in crypto.
Fortunately, with the advantage of ‘Ethereum doesn’t have a ______ it has 100 ______’, folks like Jarrod Watts provided more clarity around the 5-year timeline criticism.
EF doesn’t have a marketing problem
Instead, the EF has a marketing opportunity, particularly through an ecosystem lens.
The foundation doesn’t need to spin up a marketing team, and fortunately has builders/participants who can help address criticisms (valid or not) thoughtfully. However, there are still gaps to be filled.
And with that, I’m sharing that I’ll be joining the Remix, a developer tooling platform, focusing on growth. I’ll share more details in time but for now, if you work at one of the L2’s on the ecosystem/foundation/DAO side, I’d love to connect 🙂
People I met
As always with these event recaps, giving a shoutout to the old and new faces I’ve met!
The Azuki x Arbitrum event: I finally made it to my first Azuki IRL event and as expected, it was a vibe. It was nice to meet Zagabond in person (fun fact, we went to the same high school). Also, thank you for all the local recs Chao!
Jong (SojuDAO): Great to meet you in person and fun hanging with you at the Abstract event 🪩
Growth Con: Charan and Emily from Hype, Blingoh and Adonis from Radarblock, Shilika from Myosin, Kunal, and Gaurang — great meeting all you!
Kenny: One of my favorite thing about IRL events is meeting my readers. It was fun to chat with you about Farm Frens and how you’re approaching growth and TGE. Seems like we’ve independently come to similar conclusions regarding agents and memecoins 😉
Myosin crew: Fun with old and new faces, thanks for organizing Blake!
Savor and Reflect: A much-needed low-pressure event for an introvert like myself organized by Stef of Guava. Food was bomb, vibes were great, and even though we got rained in, the weather brought all the guests closer together figuratively and literally.
Next Billion’s Human Stories of Real World Ethereum session: I’ve worked with the Next Billion team and several of their grantees (Matters Lab, Enaleia), so it was a treat to meet them in person and also participate in breakout sessions to brainstorm more solutions. One that was particularly notable to me was Mercedes and her efforts in Venezuela amid the country’s political issues. Stablecoin adoption is high there, providing a path for deeper web3 onboarding 💪
Also, great to finally meet some fellow Pollen Labs team members Chiali, Daehyun, and Seb!
Dinner organized by Iggy: A great dinner to end the conference week where I didn’t know anyone prior to joining and we didn’t even properly introduce ourselves. We planned to do a round of introductions which I kicked off and ultimately ended up being the only person who properly made an introduction because we went on a long tangent about memecoins and my thoughts on them, which led to other topics 😂. Despite that, it was a great dinner, great company, and great conversation that didn’t focus on your role or where you worked.
Looking forward to the next Devcon in 2 years.
It’s Thanksgiving on Thursday and I’ll be preoccupied hanging out with family and eating some turkey, so I’ll see you next week!