Consensus Recap
Reporting from the largest crypto conference during the depths of a bear market
Hello reader,
My apologies for not being more active. To date, I’ve properly published only one crypto piece, and even I’ve almost forgotten it as it was 3 months ago. But I’m excited to share my impressions of my first crypto conference, CoinDesk’s Consensus 2022 in Austin, TX, even though that too was already 2 weeks ago - apologies again for touching grass, and also for having a rEaL jOB that interferes with my crypto hobby.
Overall, I recommend the Consensus experience to anyone interested in the crypto/Web3 space, as there are tons of networking opportunities and some interesting content. It’s also a good excuse to check out Austin, a fun, lively city with great food and awesome people (it’ll be there next year in April, which should be even better as this year was probably the hottest weekend I’ve ever experienced). The venue, the Austin Convention Center, was able to handle all 20,000 attendees and panels, booths, demonstrations, and workshops admirably.
The conference attendees and panel topics largely skewed toward the industry/corporate side, as opposed to the builder/dev side, but you could find your people there. Same goes for the booths at the expo - there were a lot of random CEX vendors there that have only a few thousand customers, for instance.
I didn’t attend the conference Thursday, despite having access via my pro pass (somehow this was $2500, although when I bought it back in October 2021, there was only one ticket tier, for $600, and I was upgraded automatically when CoinDesk decided they wanted to make more money from latecomers). Personally, I’d skip it if I had to pay extra, as the perks (a few additional sessions, lounge access with tepid coffee and free light beer) just weren’t worth the extra money.
Still, there was plenty to see on Friday and Saturday. I saw panels discuss NFTs, DAO governance, regulation, Terra, zero-knowledge proofs, enterprise blockchain, DeFi, wallets… pretty much every topic out there. Some of the panels were legitimately newsworthy, such as when Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) predicted stablecoin regulation would pass Congress within the year.
The expo was fun, and I spent a lot of my time checking out the different booths and networking there. There were some neat gimmicks as well, like a robot that would draw pictures sent by attendees (think lots of PFP-style NFTs), and a giant bitcoin mining rig at the Foundry booth.
The expo itself was in the main room of the Austin Convention Center, which did an admirable job hosting the majority of the Consensus events.
Across the street, a DAO House hosted panels on, well, DAOs. They also had a nice little outdoor area to mingle.
TRON had a little exhibit shilling USDD, staffed by some poor schmuck. In light of the Terra collapse, it was impossible to not burst out laughing as soon as I saw this thing.
I’m going to name two award winners from the conference: best booth and best programming. Without a doubt, the best booth goes to Cardano. Whatever you think of Cardano, they brought it hard to Consensus. Charles Hoskinson was there, mingling with anyone and everyone, and they had tons of swag and even a mini-fridge stocked with delicious green juice, which I called “Cardano Kool-Aid.” A giant video screen played pre-recorded explainers of Cardano’s adjacency to the EVM, while a separate presentation screen was utilized for live presentations. It wasn’t enough to make me take Cardano seriously, but they were trying.
The best programming (i.e. content) had to be the Bancor folks. They had a separate breakout room with catered lunch and their Head of Research, Mark Richardson (@MBRichardson87), was drawing on a whiteboard, professor-style, taking any AMM-related questions you could think of. This type of hands-on demonstration was a refreshing change from the shilling and corporate stuffiness that pervaded other areas of the conference. They also had a nice swag bag, including a ceramic coffee mug, some nice pens, and a condom with packaging that reads “Practice Safe DEX,” referring to their impermanent loss protection feature. Incidentally, they suspended IL protection at the beginning of this week, and if things get even worse for Bancor, I suspect this condom will become quite the collectable. In any case, the Bancor folks were super approachable and willing to talk about anything, and I really appreciated them being there.
As things were wrapping up at the convention center, I left to check out the Messari Happy Hour, where I stayed for 3 hours as I talked to some great people, including Marc Hochstein (@MarcHochstein), Executive Editor at Coindesk, some Framework Ventures folks, a fashion tech CEO, and lots of others who made the experience fun.
That night, I went to a THORChain party to start and then later, a fun ATXDao party featuring Cedric Gervais, who did a pretty good job as far as free shows go. I should point out that I didn’t have any of these planned before I arrived in Austin - I learned about everything while I was there and made plans on the fly. It was really easy to get involved.
The following day brought more of the same, and the day after, my friend and I wrapped up with dinner at Uchi. BTC had just broken $25k and people were going crazy. We saw a guy trading at dinner - his advice was “buy anything below $24k.” He said he had a $500k long position, so I don’t know that he’ll be back at Uchi any time soon (as of writing, BTC is between $20-21k), but hopefully things turn out ok for him.
I plan to be at Consensus next year, and if you’re reading this, I hope to see you there too. Based on my experience, I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to touch some grass and slap some ass, so for anyone looking to put a human face to a profile picture, I strongly recommend it.
Nice read! Sounds like it was a blast