EthDenver 2023

What bear market?

EthDenver is notable as being the occasion that kicks off convention season every year. It consists of a hackathon adopted by a convention and web3 #BUIDLers and corporations flock en mass to attach with different technologists, corporations and buyers on the occasion.

This yr there have been regarded as round 25,000 folks attending the convention, which is big. Each time I bought in an Uber the motive force would ask me if I used to be there for this crypto convention and inform me they’d simply dropped somebody off for it! 

As soon as upon a time (5+ years in the past) one may really feel the heart beat of web3 just by checking in on Reddit. Now there’s simply method an excessive amount of happening to maintain up with the whole lot — even in simply the Ethereum ecosystem. Nevertheless, there have been some very clear themes on the convention.

There have been mini summits throughout the week masking many areas of web3, however those who actually stood out had been:

There have been others, however being a developer convention, these are the massive themes proper now that present a snapshot of the place we’re with respect to the evolution of this ecosystem.Interoperability and wallets have been mentioned for years inside web3, nevertheless, the progress being made right here is important. 

Interoperability is an fascinating space, as all the varied alt-layer one blockchains wish to discover seamless methods to switch property between each other, particularly Ethereum. 

There are numerous sorts of interoperability between networks. The frequent theme we’re seeing is that nearly each blockchain community needs to assist Ethereum with the power to execute EVM bytecode.

These networks then obtain higher efficiency by creating layer 2 networks on them which are secured by a base chain. Property may be transferred between layer 2 networks utilizing the bottom chain as an middleman — all of them profit from the underlying safety of the bottom chain. 

Probably the most important problem lies in transferring property between non-native networks — i.e. from one layer one community comparable to Ethereum to a different comparable to Polkadot. This sometimes includes an middleman that bares a lot of the danger related to property going between chains and is a big honeypot for attackers. As enticing as one of these switch is, it is nonetheless questionable if an environment friendly answer can exist that may take away the requirement for a trusted middleman to handle the infrastructure facilitating the cross-chain switch of property. The best could be to do that on the protocol layer, however options don’t exist to bridge throughout completely different layer one protocols presently.

While at EthDenver there was an actual buzz about all of the exercise happening right here, how lengthy the “layer 2 wars” go on is prone to be dictated by the adoption of ZK-EVMs that we see over the approaching months.

The groups engaged on this expertise all have important runway, however I do not envisage a future the place we’ve got many alternative layer 2 applied sciences getting used. As an illustration, on the present time, the lion’s share of complete worth locked in layer 2 networks is throughout Arbitrum, Polygon and Optimism. 

Zero-knowledge applied sciences could also be underpinning the following era of ZK-EVMs which are about to be launched, however they’re additionally thought-about an important privacy-enabling expertise for web3. 

Though zero-knowledge expertise is utilized in ZK-EVM, it is not used for privateness causes. Transactions which are happening on layer 2 networks usually are not non-public between individuals. Though one may in principle create a non-public layer 2 community that would disguise a few of the on-chain exercise.

One of these privateness will probably be a recreation changer for customers of blockchain networks, nevertheless, it isn’t as far alongside because the layer two applied sciences, and plenty of proceed to drive true privateness ahead for blockchain networks.

Therefore the theme of zero-knowledge expertise is prone to proceed to collect extra momentum within the years to come back. 

Probably the most unbelievable takeaway from EthDenver was how vibrant the Ethereum ecosystem is in 2023, particularly contemplating we’re in a so-called bear market. I’ve all the time cherished being at Ethereum occasions comparable to DevCon, EdCon, EthCC and others, however had beforehand checked out EthDenver with a stage of FOMO having not attended. 

Loads of occasions are organised round EthDenver — a gaggle of us went climbing!

Having had the possibility to attend, I consider the FOMO was justified and for anybody on the fence about attending, you need to. I promise you will not remorse it. Simply be sure you come armed with ChapStick and hand cream — the local weather there’s extremely dry!