Ethereum Community Shifts From Crypto Winter to Crypto Weirder
NYC Blockchain Week kicks off with the Ethereal conference, showcasing a bizarre mix of utopian art projects and serious decentralized finance initiatives. The Ethereum ecosystem now attracts both starry-eyed idealists and hard-headed financial professionals.
NYC Blockchain Week begins with the Ethereal conference, hosted by ConsenSys, and features a bizarre mix of digital couture, neo-Dadaists, and keynote speeches from the year 2047. The blockchain industry transitions from the notorious crypto winter into an era that is simply much weirder. ConsenSys, a major Ethereum incubator, recently laid off 13 percent of its staff but still pushes forward with an eclectic array of projects.
The Ethereum community attracts a unique blend of starry-eyed utopians and serious financial professionals. On one side, original thinkers propose eyebrow-raising concepts like distributed autonomous art organizations. On the other side, hard-headed money people focus heavily on DeFi, or decentralized finance, which builds on the ICO craze to create platforms for loans, insurance, and derivatives using smart contracts.
DeFi currently centers around MakerDAO, a stablecoin system that maintains a constant dollar value through complex cryptocurrency loans rather than direct fiat collateral. The Ethereal conference reflects this divide, drawing serious figures like former hedge-fund billionaire Michael Novogratz alongside Rocket Lawyer CEO Charley Moore. Moore uses the event to announce the beta launch of Rocket Wallet, which promises legal contract execution and payments on the Ethereum blockchain.