Devcon 2024: The Historic Event for Ethereum Community and The Future of Web3

This year’s Devcon in Southeast Asia was a huge success. It hosted 12,500 attendees from 130 countries, 60% of whom were first-time attendees, including me. The Devcon week was full of great meetings, insights, and impressions of busy and authentic Bangkok.

My name is Daria. I’m the Head of Marketing at ETHWarsaw (the conference and hackathon) and a content creator focusing on the product and culture sides of the web3 field.

I have attended EthCC, Devconnect, Dappcon, ZK Summit, ETHDam, ETHWarsaw, and ETHBucharest (some of these events I attended several times) and many other community and niche events. I have also participated in a few hackathons as a hacker and mentor, but Devcon in Bangkok exceeded expectations!

In this article, I share my impressions and experience about Devcon 7, the hottest trends of the blockchain and crypto industry, and explain why I like the Ethereum community so much.

This event will probably become part of the history of the decentralized internet and may start a new crypto bull run. By the way, what are the current prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum? 😉

The People and Vibes of Ethereum

Despite the high cost of transactions and the scaling challenges, no other blockchain ecosystem has such a level of adoption among mass users as Ethereum. L2 networks, Account Abstraction technology, staking and restaking, and many other projects aim to bypass technical limitations and make Ethereum the most usable blockchain.

The openness to project creation and support for innovation from the Ethereum Foundation create the conditions for developing a unique community. In this community, there is a place for founders, developers and engineers, marketers and designers, and everyone who has a hand in accelerating the transition of the Internet to its decentralized stage, where the ownership of content belongs to the creator and finances or personal data do not depend on centralized entities.

Compared to traditional industries, I feel more freedom and openness in web3 (especially in the Ethereum community). People are more authentic and less corporate. Aggressive sales and transactional relations look toxic. There is more desire to contribute to be valuable and well-known. Of course, as I described in my previous article, there are many hiring and corporate culture challenges. Still, they are not as critical as the discoveries, innovations, and opportunities this field offers.

The day before Devcon, my husband and I met one of the most influential Ethereum content creators — sassal.eth, the host of The Daily Gwei. This guy can talk about Ethereum for hours, and I'm super happy that our visions for the ecosystem are aligned. It was a great start to a long and exciting week!

Vitalik Buterin, the co-inventor of Ethereum, is hugely famous, but not many people know his father. Meeting Dima Buterin at the venue was a pleasant surprise. He is a great person who can inspire and be an example to many beyond the Ethereum ecosystem. As a Ukrainian, I’m thankful to Dima for his support and contribution to the Ukrainian blockchain ecosystem during these tough times.

I was happy to meet Austin Griffith, the co-founder of BuidlGuidl and a legend among Ethereum builders. I invited him to speak and inspire newbie devs at the ETHWarsaw conference next year.

The overall experience of blockchain week in Thailand was positive. I constantly felt FOMO because I wanted to attend all the events that interested me, and the traffic in Bangkok was sometimes problematic. Nevertheless, I will share the most exciting topics of this year's event below, which will 100% affect the future of decentralized systems and interpersonal connections on the internet.

The Web3 trends and hottest topics

If you missed Devcon 7, you can watch all the talks and workshops on the Ethereum Foundation YouTube channel. There are more than 300 hours of high-end technical, conceptual and culture-oriented content about the future of blockchain and crypto. However, I can highlight the most discussable topics that reflect the market situation and trends.

🤖 AI Agents

If you go to any web3 hackathon now, you can definitely find at least 3-5 projects focused on creating AI agents for different use cases.

AI agents in the web3 sphere are autonomous software entities that combine AI and decentralized technologies to perform tasks, make decisions, and interact with decentralized networks or smart contracts. AI agents can enable new ways of monetizing data, creativity, and services within decentralized ecosystems.

🪙 Tokenization and RWA

“Tokenize whatever!“ - this is the slogan for some projects in web3. Sometimes, it looks unnecessary, but there are many cases when tokenization helps to scale existing business models and turn them into more innovative and usable ones — for instance, Real-World Assets or RWA.

RWAs are tangible or traditional financial assets — such as real estate, commodities, equities, or bonds — that have been tokenized to exist on a blockchain. Tokenization involves creating digital tokens representing ownership or rights to these physical assets, enabling them to be managed and traded within DeFi platforms.

⛔️ Lack of consumer-oriented applications and poor UX

The industry has too many L2 networks and other infrastructure projects, but only a few products exist for users. We are still too far from seeing our neighbors using DeFi apps or decentralized privacy solutions. Infrastructure projects can raise more money, so many founders decided to focus on tech more than on consumers. That’s why many projects are built without the expertise of UX designers - by developers who design solutions for tech-savvy individuals.

My husband Andrii, the product designer for Web3 products, conducted a workshop at Devcon on user research and customer journey mapping. I was surprised by how many people weren’t aware of these “golden classic” methods from the web2 world. If you are interested in learning users in web3, here is the link to the video recording of his workshop.

📲 Account Abstraction

This technology can help overcome the barriers of onboarding consumers to web3 by reducing gas costs for users with Paymaster, supporting social recovery (your family members or friends can be your wallet guardians), enhancing control over funds and operational workflows for institutional entities, and much more.

AA technology is vital to the Ethereum Foundation. The organizers created a dedicated room - Account Abstraction Hub - to discuss the topics related to smart account wallets, increased security, and web3 user onboarding. You can read my article about Account Abstraction and how it helps web3 founders create exciting user and brand experiences.

🤡 Memecoins

The new era of memecoins has come. Whether you like them or not, this huge trend will only grow.

The success of Pumpfun (the platform for memecoins built on Solana) has boosted the high interest in memecoins to the moon in all possible blockchain ecosystems. They are cheaper and fast-growing alternatives to traditional crypto coins and can be created by anyone. Memecoins like DODGE and SHIBA are now OGs.

The recent Clanker AI agent creates tokens in response to text-based instructions from Farcaster users. According to The Defiant, on Nov. 26, the fees generated by Clanker, an AI agent built to launch tokens on Base in response to text-based prompts, tagged an all-time high of $1.2 million, according to Dune. Since launching on Nov. 8, the project has accumulated $7.1 million worth of fees.

🌎 Blockchain for Public Good

The current state of social, economic, political and military aspects in the world sucks, to say the least. Innovations in decentralized technologies can partially overcome some social and economic problems relevant to most people on Earth, such as lack of savings (financial safety “bag”), lack of access to stock markets and the ability to invest in stocks, trading personal data by centralized social networks like Facebook or TikTok, lack of ownership of content published by the author on the Internet, and many others.

Stani Kulechov from Avara described how he believes we should use blockchain and crypto's potential for the public good.

🧑‍💻 DevRel as a format of B2D marketing

Many infra projects hire developer relations specialists to share the value of their technology with developers; this format can be called Business-To-Developers.

DevRel engages with developers through events, forums, and online platforms to foster a thriving community. They also create learning resources, such as documentation, tutorials, and webinars, to teach developers how to use the company's products effectively. Effective DevRels not only empower developers but also align closely with the company's product, marketing, and support functions to achieve overall success.

Recently, I finished my studies at the DevRel Uni course led by Bianca Buzea from Chronicle Protocol. I spent six insightful weeks with the great DevRel engineers. In this photo, Bianca, my coursemate Szutung and I are at the Devcon venue.

At the SheFi Summit, I met Matt Hamilton, the Arbitrum Foundation's DevRel engineer. We discussed some DevRel stuff and even recorded a short video about my students' experience during the DevRel course.

The ETHGlobal hackathon team shares the main themes for builders’ projects. According to the jury’s decisions, these types of projects are in high demand.

Devcon Parties and Entertainment

The blockchain and crypto community is famous for its parties.

Some parties become notorious and create not the best image of the industry. We all know these crazy club hangouts for crypto bros with lots of booze and questionable entertainment. I’m strongly against this and call everyone organizing such parties to stop.

However, if well-organized and with good intentions, they are a great way to relax after complex technical presentations and workshops. I believe such interactions, which create new quality connections, have a right to exist.

I was happy to participate in the ZK Sante event, which was organized by the projects from the ZKsync community. The teams of Clave, txFusion, Zyfi and Venus Protocol gathered friends and business partners for quality network and to celebrate the successful conference. In the photo, you can see me and the team members of the mentioned projects at a rooftop bar.

I was also invited to the event organized by Base/Coinbase under the slogan “The Future is Based.” It was a gathering for Base's friends and ecosystem partners in one of Bangkok's most conceptual bars. It was a pleasure to learn more about this blockchain and meet people who are developing one of the most successful ecosystems!

I met a few founders of the projects built on Base there and had an insightful chat with Will, a core team member and contributor to Base.

I believe that such evening events work very well for building a quality network and an opportunity to meet in an informal setting with those who inspire you or with those for whom you are an example ✨

Conclusions

Devcon 7 in Bangkok was the place to be if you work in blockchain and crypto. The 800+ side events (just imagine these numbers!), in addition to the main event, reflected an incredibly high interest in web3 tech and career opportunities in the sphere. People who attended previous Devcons say this one was the best so far, and I don’t have any reasons for doubt.

I was happy to participate in such a huge blockchain event, where great minds and enthusiasts from different countries gathered in one place to ideate, discuss, build, and share experiences. It was amazing to reconnect with some of my old friends and meet new ones.

I realized how bullish I am about DevRel and everything related to the product and tech sides compared to traditional marketing. I love discussing tech concepts and pieces of research and how they impact individuals and global societies.

I like Bangkok's vibrant mix of old and new. It illustrates fast-developing economies. I'm sure Devcon positively impacted the Thai economic system. Taylor Swift has influenced regional economies in different parts of the world with her shows, and Devcon was influential in tech and social development.

My Thailand experience was also good overall despite the long flight (6 + 6 hours) from Europe. It was my first time in Asia, and probably not the last.

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