What bear market?
EthDenver is notable as being the occasion that kicks off convention season annually. It consists of a hackathon adopted by a convention and web3 #BUIDLers and firms flock en mass to attach with different technologists, corporations and buyers on the occasion.
This 12 months there have been regarded as round 25,000 folks attending the convention, which is large. Each time I obtained in an Uber the driving 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 heartbeat of web3 just by checking in on Reddit. Now there’s simply method an excessive amount of happening to maintain up with every little thing — even in simply the Ethereum ecosystem. Nevertheless, there have been some very clear themes on the convention.
There have been mini summits through the week protecting many areas of web3, however people who actually stood out had been:
There have been others, however being a developer convention, these are the large 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, nonetheless, the progress being made right here is critical.
Interoperability is an attention-grabbing space, as all the assorted alt-layer one blockchains need to discover seamless methods to switch property between each other, particularly Ethereum.
There are numerous forms of interoperability between networks. The widespread theme we’re seeing is that just about each blockchain community needs to help Ethereum with the flexibility to execute EVM bytecode.
These networks then obtain larger efficiency by creating layer 2 networks on them which can be secured by a base chain. Property might 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 equivalent to Ethereum to a different equivalent to Polkadot. This sometimes includes an middleman that bares a lot of the chance related to property going between chains and is a major honeypot for attackers. As enticing as any such switch is, it is nonetheless questionable if an environment friendly resolution 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 can be to do that on the protocol layer, however options don’t exist to bridge throughout totally different layer one protocols at present.
While at EthDenver there was an actual buzz about all of the exercise going down right here, how lengthy the “layer 2 wars” go on is more likely 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 now we have many various layer 2 applied sciences getting used. As an illustration, on the present time, the lion’s share of whole worth locked in layer 2 networks is throughout Arbitrum, Polygon and Optimism.
Zero-knowledge applied sciences could also be underpinning the subsequent era of ZK-EVMs which can be about to be launched, however they’re additionally thought-about a vital privacy-enabling expertise for web3.
Though zero-knowledge expertise is utilized in ZK-EVM, it is not used for privateness causes. Transactions which can be going down on layer 2 networks are usually not personal between individuals. Though one may in concept create a personal layer 2 community that might conceal a number of the on-chain exercise.
One of these privateness might be a recreation changer for customers of blockchain networks, nonetheless, it isn’t as far alongside because the layer two applied sciences, and lots of proceed to drive true privateness ahead for blockchain networks.
Therefore the theme of zero-knowledge expertise is more likely to proceed to collect extra momentum within the years to come back.
Probably the most unimaginable 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 liked being at Ethereum occasions equivalent to DevCon, EdCon, EthCC and others, however had beforehand checked out EthDenver with a degree of FOMO having not attended.
Loads of occasions are organised round EthDenver — a gaggle of us went climbing!
Having had the prospect to attend, I imagine 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 to come armed with ChapStick and hand cream — the local weather there may be extremely dry!
