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, firms and buyers on the occasion.
This 12 months there have been considered 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 might really feel the heart beat of web3 just by checking in on Reddit. Now there’s simply means 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 through the week protecting many areas of web3, however people who actually stood out have 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 fascinating 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 varieties of interoperability between networks. The frequent theme we’re seeing is that just about each blockchain community desires to assist Ethereum with the flexibility to execute EVM bytecode.
These networks then obtain higher efficiency by creating layer 2 networks on them which might be secured by a base chain. Belongings 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 vital problem lies in transferring property between non-native networks — i.e. from one layer one community resembling Ethereum to a different resembling Polkadot. This usually includes an middleman that bares a lot of the chance related to property going between chains and is a big honeypot for attackers. As enticing as this sort of 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 could be to do that on the protocol layer, however options don’t exist to bridge throughout totally different layer one protocols presently.
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 vital runway, however I do not envisage a future the place we’ve got many various layer 2 applied sciences getting used. For example, 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 technology of ZK-EVMs which might be about to be launched, however they’re additionally thought of 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 might be going down on layer 2 networks will not be personal between members. Though one might in principle create a non-public layer 2 community that would conceal a few of the on-chain exercise.
Such a privateness can be a sport changer for customers of blockchain networks, nonetheless, it is not 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 more likely to proceed to collect extra momentum within the years to return.
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 at all times liked being at Ethereum occasions resembling 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 consider the FOMO was justified and for anybody on the fence about attending, it’s best 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!
