Today was the official start of Devcon4 in Prague, the yearly Ethereum conference family reunion hosted by the Ethereum Foundation. It’s my first time, too. Although I actively create (blog posts, podcasts, books, ..), I’m no developer.
I’ve heard different estimations, ranging from 2000 to 3000 attendees. The Congress Center doesn’t feel “full,” although these estimations certainly feel rather correct. There’s a massive amount of interest in the talks (as I noticed in the Prism room today, where I attended the Swarm update and Alex van de Sande’s Universal Ethereum Login talk) but it never feels too crowded. Except maybe for the Cryptoeconomics talk by Zamfir and Giorgios, where some attendees happily stood up for the entire two-hour session.
It’s interesting to meet some people whose ideas or work you’ve been exposed to. In the last few weeks, I listened to quite a few podcasts with Rune, MakerDAO‘s founder, and Joseph Lubin, of Consensys. It feels almost surreal to stand next to both. The same goes, obviously, for Vitalik. It’s my impression that Devcon is rather meritocratic. There’s lots of respect between participants, people are eager to learn, and the space is booming. Those are great ingredients for a great conference. Also, the catering is great.
Although I have zero background from a Computer Science or engineering perspective, I’ll try to write daily updates on the sessions I’ve attended, and shine some light on the things I’m learning here, from my tiny corner of the universe.
You can attend online at devcon4.tv.