The highlight of my six years in crypto is still my first ETHDenver in 2020. ETH was down more than 90% from its Jan. 2018 peak, but 2,000 of the smartest people I had ever met gathered in Denver to change the world. In my post on the event, I wrote that ETHDenver was a revelation, noting that “The Ethereum community has tipped and the world has no idea.”

As the longest-running ETH event, ETHDenver has emerged as the mecca of crypto conferences. There are other epic crypto conferences, notably Consensus, Token 2049, and Paris Blockchain Week. But ETHDenver is special because it’s focused on the builders. And the best and the brightest builders come from around the world to attend ETHDenver.

The crowd ballooned to 13,000 for ETHDenver 2022. In my 2022 post, I highlighted that “the crowd was a little older, more international, more female, and more diverse than ETHDenver 2020.”

As I eagerly await ETHDenver 2023, here are five things I’m predicting:

#1 CryptoMondays ETHDenver Will Rock

Almost everyone at ETHDenver is shilling something, and I’m no exception. With 50 chapters around the world, CryptoMondays is the largest crypto Meetup in the world, and CryptoMondays ETHDenver (on the 27th at 6:30pm) provides an opportunity for many of the chapter organizers to hang and share stories of great events hosted during the prior year (e.g. CryptoMondays NFT NYC with Andrew Yang).

Our featured guest at CryptoMondyas ETHDenver 2023 is Marieke Flament, the CEO of the NEAR Foundation (and previously CMO of Circle). I last hung with Marieke at the NEARCON 2022, the NEAR ecosystem summit in Lisbon. NEAR’s an amazing community, and Marieke will have lots of great insights to share. Click here to register for the Meetup.

#2 Lots Of New DAO Tooling Will Be Announced

At ETHDenver 2022, there was lots of excitement around some rapidly growing DAOs including Constitution DAO, the Blockbuster DAO, and the LinksDAO. But the reality was that DAO tooling to organize and optimize DAOs was limited. While we’re still early in DAO tool development, I’m super excited for DAO Denver, a three-day side event starting Feb. 27th, featuring dozens of DAO thought leaders from around the world. I’m most excited to see new governance tools, web3 CRMs, and emerging token economic models.

#3 “Where Outside The U.S. Are You Thinking Of Moving” Will Be A Popular Topic Of Conversation

ETHDenver is for builders, and the U.S. has made it clear that building in the U.S. is a risky endeavor. So living outside the U.S. becomes a consideration for many builders that want to continue to build. The nice thing is, there’s a growing list of countries providing friendly regulatory environments. My first choice would be Lisbon, given the weather, cost of living, the golden visa program, the great crypto community, and just the general vibe. But Dubai is appealing to many given the vast amount of capital earmarked for web3, coupled with favorable regulations. While Singapore is the most popular Asian destination for crypto, other cheaper locations like Vietnam and Thailand are also attractive. I’m looking forward to learning about other amazing crypto communities that are emerging around the world.

#4 Financial Capital Will Continue To Be Scarce

During my fireside chat with Ken Moelis at CryptoMondays Davos in January, he said the biggest difference between the World Economic Forum (“WEF”) 2023 and the seven previous WEFs he had been to was that this was the first WEF where all the world’s excess capital was in the Middle East. And with most central banks, including the Fed, still in a tightening mode, coupled with the unfriendly regulatory environment in the U.S., capital will still be scarce at ETHDenver.

#5 Human Capital Will Continue To Flow To Web3

The biggest difference between this crypto winter and the last one was how much building is still going on. There are still lots of people leaving CeFi and other industries to come and build in web3. The people who came to crypto for easy money have left. But they’re being replaced by people building to change the world. And tons of those people will trek to Denver for the greatest crypto party of the year. WAGMI!

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