Reflections from DevCon

The author, who attended Funding the Commons and DevCon in Bangkok, argues that the Ethereum community offers hope after what they describe as the mostly dead idealism of crypto online. Funding the Commons, an organisation bridging builders and researchers to create new mechanisms for digital public goods funding, impressed them as an introduction to the ecosystem. DevCon, the Ethereum Foundation's bi-annual conference, showcased projects such as Nym, GrapheneOS and Tor, and the author says almost all its power was soft power. The author also spoke on institutional failure in MENA governance and says over 50% of the 12,000 attendees came from South East Asia.