ETHDenver Day 2: NFTs, Gaming the Future and COVID Fantasists

David Z. Morris is CoinDesk's Chief Insights Columnist. He holds Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and tiny amounts of different crypto assets.

Like immoderate truly happening conference, ETHDenver is intolerable to acquisition successful full. It’s hard to adjacent truly archer erstwhile it begins and ends. Events person been going connected for astir a week, but the authoritative kickoff time is Thursday.

So first, for those of you astir to arrive, a important and applicable extremity – get to registration arsenic aboriginal arsenic imaginable for your badge. The league is requiring on-site COVID-19 tests for introduction (though not impervious of vaccination), and adjacent with the tiny trickle of radical showing up aboriginal connected Tuesday, things got snarled. I expect immense and frustrating delays contiguous and time arsenic the bulk of attendees amusement up.

David Z. Morris is CoinDesk's main insights columnist. He volition beryllium astatine ETHDenver each week.

Inevitably, determination was a COVID-19 fantasist connected manus to marque things adjacent much annoying. (Pro extremity for the large brains: Yelling astatine the feline manning the registration array astir the investigating argumentation demonstrates you person a ceramic wall’s comprehension of however the satellite works. When you’re a white-presenting antheral shouting astatine an indifferent, harried and non-white staffer that the argumentation is “segregation,” immoderate mightiness gully adjacent darker conclusions astir your character.)

Anyway, the investigating process is being handled successful groups, which provides a bully accidental to speech to a random illustration of different attendees. As expected, this is the archetypal crypto league for rather a fewer of them. I bumped into folks who had been drawn into crypto by canine tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFT), and it’s large to spot that pipeline starring to an lawsuit arsenic hardcore arsenic ETHDenver.

Some presenters catered to the newbie audience. “Who knows what a fork is?” 1 asked from the signifier yesterday. “OK, tons of you, not everyone.” That anyone would beryllium astatine a high-level crypto league without knowing what a fork is is beauteous crazy, but besides hopeful – the presenter went connected to springiness a decent, concise explanation, truthful there’s existent learning happening here.

The astir absorbing presumption I caught Tuesday was from the Foresight Institute, a nonprofit focused connected utilizing exertion specified arsenic artificial quality (AI) and biotech to lick large problems. This radical has been astir for decades, but it's stepping into crypto due to the fact that of its imaginable to coordinate enactment to, successful particular, money nationalist goods. The institute has a caller postulation of absorbing essays called "Gaming the Future" about, broadly, inducement design, that seems fascinating and features crypto large wheels including Balaji Srinivasan.

This explicit telephone to usage blockchain tech to lick large corporate enactment problems perfectly captures Ethereum’s taste presumption successful the cryptosphere. The clearest opposition is with Bitcoiners, who are successful information focused connected a corporate occupation – currency absorption – but mostly framework that successful hyper-individualist presumption of spot and ownership. The sermon astir Ethereum is substantially much hippy-dippy, invoking a blissful aboriginal successful which systems plan solves each of our governmental problems. Often that’s to a responsibility – we are, aft all, inactive fundamentally talking astir wealth here, and galore would reason you can’t dismantle the master’s location with the master’s tools.

Finally, not a batch of today’s programming caught my oculus – possibly a spot of a lull earlier things get into afloat swing. But 2 events did instrumentality retired – this instauration to decentralized retention utilizing IPFS and Filecoin, and this treatment connected privacy and Web 3, a captious topic. If you’re not successful Denver this week, it does look you inactive person a accidental to registry arsenic a virtual attendee and ticker these online.

So person fun, enactment safe, beryllium bully and hole to learn.