There was a long wait between Devcon V and its successor due to the 2-year hiatus caused by COVID-19. Devcon VI had some big differences from Devcon Osaka because Bogotá is a city that challenges the mindset of Web3. It is more south than Shanghai and less tropical than Cancún. ETH Devcon is a conference hosted by ETH Global to educate and empower the Ethereum community to build and use decentralized systems. It is a conference for builders of all kinds: designers, developers, test engineers and others. Also called the ‘conference of conferences’, this event is an intensive introduction for new Ethereum explorers, a global family reunion for those already a part of the ecosystem, and a source of inspiration for everyone.
ImpactScope was present at ETH Devcon Bogotá, represented by one of our newest team members Susana Gonzalez, Head of LATAM partnerships. ETH Bogota was the opening event of a week of web3 events, bringing together the brightest minds and change makers in the web3 space to help build the future of Ethereum. The Hackathon was the weekend of Devcon, starting from 7th through October 9th. Important sponsors like Aztec, Worldcoin, ssv.network, Push Protocol, Mina Protocol, among others handled the prizes.
Funding the Commons event
On Monday the 10th, there were a number of pre-opening events: Schelling Point, Polygon Connect and Eth Latam. The latter was the largest Spanish-speaking conference in the region. Including a keynote opening by Vitalik Buterin (Speaking some Spanish), the event introduced important concepts and the roadmap for the Ethereum community in the region. Local ventures, DAO’s and speakers made it clear that creating in Spanish is part of the Ethereum community’s goal.
Devcon itself began on October 11th and continued inside the massive Agora, a convention center with 5 floors. This venue was also used by ETH Bogotá and ETH Latam. It had great keynote speakers like Brewster Kahle, Vitalik Buterin, Pia Mancini (Founder, Open Collective), Aya Miyaguchi (Executive director, Ethereum foundation), Bruno Maçães (Flint Global) and many others.
This 4-day event saw over 1400 attendees from 62 countries, 31% from LATAM, 212 projects, 34% new to Web3 and 900 hackers. There were loads of insightful talks and presentations on various topics such as Web3, NFTs, DeFi ReFi, and others.
Since this was the week of Web3 conferences, side events were also on the mandatory list. Agora contained a hack basement that was the perfect site to create new projects; several small booths were on the first floor presenting ReFi small talks and networking opportunities; the third floor had impact booths to showcase different ventures and the fourth floor contained the Public Goods booths.
ReFi convened on Wednesday the 12th for the Sustainable Blockchain Summit at the Museo del Chicó. FileCoin provided the opportunity for locals to speak on carbon offsets, Ecosystem Restoration among other topics.
New topics arose during the conference, and other subjects of great importance took a leading role. For example, quadratic funding was a constant conversation topic by Common Stack and Gitcoin, among others. Token economics; censored blocks in Ethereum (OFAC compliant); Tornado Cash controversy; The Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act in the US that is turning DeFi into two, pushing forward DarkFi; and the communication of Web3’s future, translation, languages and positive framing of it were discussed.
Overall, Devcon VI was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and as web3 continues to evolve, we will never return to smaller sessions. This is a new age and ImpactScope is glad to have been part of this massive event.