ETHDenver 2024 Highlights and Participation Experience (continuously updated)

The Ethereum Denver Conference (ETHDenver 2024) opened on February 23, with the main activities concentrated from February 29 to March 3. Enthusiasts from the entire crypto industry gathered together to announce new protocols or ideas, Or looking for future partners.

Bitui reporter Lincoln Murr came to Denver, USA, and went deep into the scene to deliver the most exciting highlights of the conference and the latest trends of thought.

February 29

Traffic problems in the Denver area have attracted much attention. Cryptocurrency plays an important role in this city, whether it is young people carrying While walking around the city with a backpack, you can still see the Injective protocol billboards in almost every corner.

The main conference center is located in the National Western Complex, with booths of various companies displayed inside, attracting participants to interact with products and project parties. People can experience the team's explanation of the project mechanism up close, understand its inner workings, and also have the opportunity to receive free gifts such as T-shirts.

One eye-catching booth came from XMTP, a messaging protocol that allows users to send and receive messages through their Ethereum addresses. The project team built a temporary "convenience" Shop,” where people can get free gum, shirts, and even Lens profile addresses by texting “gm” to their address.

Matcha’s booth is also an exciting option. This is a decentralized exchange aggregator from 0x, and they offer you a free matcha drink if you trade Matcha in front of their booth. This innovative approach is both engaging and fun, allowing visitors to experience digital currency trading while also enjoying a refreshing cup of matcha drink.

NEAR’s large booth highlights its suitability for a variety of tasks, including data availability, artificial intelligence, and user and developer experience. Demonstrates the potential of NEAR in solving a variety of problems.

The biggest side event of the day was the Berapalooza hosted by the Berachain team. The event started at four o'clock, and there was a long queue immediately. The anonymous Berachain founder and several other thought leaders, including Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal, spoke about Berachain and other related topics at the meeting. Solana ecological KOL Ansem has also appeared, and with the mainnet expected to be launched this year, Berachain’s influence is expanding.

Many protocols use ETHDenver as an opportunity to announce new partnerships or product launches. For example, Starknet launched Stwo, a new open source zero-knowledge prover that will make processing on Starknet cheaper and more efficient. After the airdrop, Starknet appears to be prioritizing user needs and aiming to compete with cheaper L2s like ZkSync.

Another major partnership is Arbitrum Layer 2 and Robinhood Wallet (a crypto wallet created by the Robinhood exchange). The wallet will now natively support the Arbitrum decentralized exchange swap, allowing users to easily acquire tokens they can’t get on regular Robinhood at low fees.

Coinbase announced the launch of two new wallet solutions at the conference: smart wallets and embedded wallets. Smart wallets introduce account abstraction, meaning users do not need to rely on private keys to custody assets. Instead, they can feature two-factor authentication or social recovery capabilities. It also allows for more customization, such as paying wallet fees directly from the Coinbase app. Embedded wallets will be able to be integrated directly into products or services and eliminate the difficulty of self-custody.

February 28

Bitpush AI described this conference as the world’s largest “Web3 BUIDLathon” (Bitpush AI is an advanced artificial intelligence chat robot that integrates AI and Web3 All in one, it provides news captured by artificial intelligence, a huge encrypted knowledge base, intelligent market analysis and community forums).

Pragma hosted by EthGlobal is a "warm-up" for the conference. Founders of protocols such as EigenLayer, NEAR, Polygon, Arbitrum, etc. talk about the intersection of encryption and artificial intelligence, re-staking risks, and blockchain privacy. Solutions and other topics.

Interoperability and mainstream adoption are eternal themes. Henri Stern, co-founder of crypto wallet startup Privy, said during the discussion that the first priority is to enable mainstream users to take advantage of the benefits of decentralization. This means building easy-to-use solutions that enable self-hosting, portability between applications, and retain user control. The ultimate goal should be a global multi-chain wallet that allows users to smoothly switch between L1, L1 and traditional finance.

Stern also talked about the trend of embedded crypto wallets, which do not require users to set up a separate browser extension or account, which has huge potential for people interested in cryptocurrency who would otherwise be overwhelmed by the difficulty of getting started. deterred by technical obstacles.

Another interesting tidbit comes from Doug Petkanics (Founder and CEO of Livepeer), Illia Polosukhin (Co-Founder of NEAR) and Niraj Pant (Co-Founder of Ritual) ) on the convergence of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, as well as high-integrity datasets and model deployment.

For example, the anonymity and permissionless payments of blockchain could enable the properly coordinated crowdsourcing of training data to reduce systemic bias in artificial intelligence systems. The founders also discussed the model becoming an open source public good, with continuous improvements funded through network orchestration and cryptographic payments. However, they also acknowledge that there are still many unanswered questions around governance, value capture and mitigating potential harms such as misinformation.

Scroll co-founder Sandy Peng outlined their vision for how L2 will stand out: focusing on the development of communities in specific areas. In fact, they mentioned that focusing their efforts on Asia has proven to be successful and gives them a stickiness that other projects may not have. She mentioned the importance of innovative and creative dApps and expressed excitement about the many upcoming dApps built on Scroll.

A particularly illuminating talk was given by Sreeram Kannan, founder of crypto rehypothecation protocol EigenLayer, which currently ranks fourth among DeFi applications in terms of total value locked. He described how EigenLayer enables Ethereum stake holders to make a credible commitment that they will correctly validate transactions without having to post additional collateral. This is achieved through Active Validation Services (AVS) – specialized smart contracts covering use cases from layer 2 chains to oracles to DeFi. EigenLayer introduces attributable slashing conditions so these AVS contracts can allocate security budgets from the underlying stake pool. There is also a licensed veto committee to minimize risk.

Kannan is most excited about the concept of trusted APIs—the ability to run complex off-chain computations and facilitate on-chain settlements with economic guarantees. This allows Ethereum’s existing security framework to cover more advanced dApps. However, he acknowledged that there could be issues around leverage and liquidity if speculation arises around EigenLayer regaining liquidity tokens from protocols such as Ether.fi or Kelp. Overall, EigenLayer provides a glimpse into the future possibilities of universal verification services to expand blockchain functionality without compromising decentralization, and clearly outlines the risk profile of these activities.

#EthGlobal’s Pragma did not disappoint, and the next few days are only going to get more lively and interesting as the main conference begins.

Bitui reporters will continue to bring you live reports, so stay tuned.

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