TL;DR Breakdown
- Developers and crypto investors from around the globe turned up for the EDCON 2023 conference in Montenegro for an amazing community meetups/panels/etc.
- What went wrong? What could’ve been better? Read on.
EDCON 2023, the greatest Ethereum conference of the year, had all the factors set in its favor to be the greatest, most productive crypto event of the year. It’s summer down South Europe, and many developers and crypto enthusiasts found themselves on the beaches of Italy, Greece, Croatia, and even Albania, believe it or not.
Coincidentally, it mashed up with the EDCON – the newest breed of those Ethereum Foundation conferences. This brand new one, powered by UETH, was held in the beautiful city of Podgorica, Montenegro, and hosted by amazing UDG powered by Arizona State University.
Events leading up to EDCON and expectations
So, EDCON is a non-profit annual global Ethereum conference held in various countries. This year, despite an odd location (previous ones were held in Paris, Miami, etc.), had a surprisingly huge turnout considering that summer vacations came at the same time as the Ethereum conference. The event was packed with founders, developers, crypto enthusiasts, and critics at full length.
The brightest minds of the Ethereum community, including Vitalik Buterin (co-founder of Ethereum), Balaji Srinivasan (author of the Network State), Scott Moore (co-founder of Gitcoin), Primavera De Filippi (Blockchain researcher at CNRS and the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University), Tim Beiko (Ethereum Foundation), Barry Whitehat (Ethereum Foundation), Cy Li (Director of De University of Ethereum), blended perfectly well with other stalwarts of the crypto community like the co-founder of Polygon, Dominic Williams, founder of ICP, Vlad Martynov, Karnika Yashwant KEY – founder of Forward protocol, Yaros Belkin – founder of Belkin Marketing.)
Considering the Zuzalu experiment taking place in Tivat, Montenegro, the attendance of Vitalik himself was out of the question, so many in the community were excited about the attendance. Zuzalu, a pioneering summer developers camp (turned out to be a social experiment).
Zuzalu, the first-of-its-kind event in Lustica Bay, Montenegro, which has been going on for the past two months, characterizes itself as a pop-up city, with an invite-only crowd of approximately 200 executives and developers who are interested in cryptography, technology, and longevity.
How to get an invitation to next year’s Zuzalu is still ambiguous. Some participants remarked that the organizers are looking into how they can invite more people or perhaps hold the event in a more accessible region of the globe.
According to reports from our ambassador at EDCON 2023, attendees came from as far as Colombia, China, Japan, the United States, and across the globe. Why? Well, because these community members knew EDCON would carry a value not yet present in the crypto industry. The PR prior to the conference sold the idea of an “intellectual feast,” insider reports.
How did EDCON go down? Here are the details
Note that not all was doom and gloom. EDCON has had positive effects on crypto investors, especially Ethereum adopters, since its start in 2017. The EDCON conference has brought together in-person developers who had previously only interacted through online platforms. The conference’s seminars and discussions extend far beyond the crypto space.
They have evolved into families, social gatherings, and side projects. What a time for crypto investors and DeFi developers to be in the space. Ethereum has arguably stood and still stands to offer more to the crypto community than Bitcoin does. Time and time again, Vitalik Buterin has stated that the Ethereum blockchain stands to offer crypto enthusiasts more than a crypto coin. EDCON 2023 has proven that to be true.
The interactions and discussions left one thing to be true – Crypto offers longevity, the decentralized government of the future. Big names with successful projects turned up to the event, such as the head of DFINITY and Polygon – who only added to the importance of EDCON and partnerships.
However, there were inevitable flaws. But there remains room for improvement.
What can be done better for the EDCON’s years ahead
Sadly, these flaws do not stem from first-time mistakes – that allow room for learning and growth. As observed, they stem from negligence and lack of proper planning. As the insider told Cryptopolitan firsthand, “It was a bad idea to have two venues.” One venue had close to nothing going on, and the travel and stay-in logistics were poorly planned.
There is an event that remains disturbing to the attendees at EDCON. According to the source, there was indecency in how an enthusiast from China was not able to ask their question as a mike was torn from. The reason for this was that the event organizers were running out of time. The attendee from China had a question for Vitalik Buterin, who sat as one of the panelists.
There is always a silver lining. There is nothing that cannot be improved and corrected. Time management and proper scheduling go a long way. Event planners may want to ask what goes into planning a crypto event?
It’s a known truth that a high number of developers and techie persons have a hard time relating with the outside world far from their comfort zones – their computers. As challenging as that is, these developers risked appearance to hear from the Vitalik – V-god – as he is commonly known in China.
Pessimism aside – constructive criticism is needed, particularly when crypto is under siege from all sides. What other crypto events run out there? On what grounds do they run on? What makes these events memorable for crypto investors? With better planning, EDCON 2024 stands to be the best crypto event the community has ever seen.