What are the core narratives in focus at ETHDenver? Key highlights not to be missed
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What are the core narratives in focus at ETHDenver? Key highlights not to be missed
Liquid restaking, Bitcoin L2, points, Crypto+AI, Berachain...
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Karen, Foresight News
The annual ETHDenver conference is a major event in the Ethereum ecosystem. ETHDenver 2024 took place from February 23 to March 3 in Denver, USA, attracting tens of thousands of Web3 enthusiasts and developers.
As ETHDenver concluded, the BUIDLATHON hackathon announced its Top 15 finalists. If you're interested in what Web3 builders are focusing on and exploring innovative projects emerging from the ETHDenver hackathon, check out "Top 15 Projects from the ETHDenver Hackathon."
After reviewing discussions about ETHDenver on Twitter, I found that keywords such as “liquid restaking,” “Bitcoin Layer 2,” “points,” “Crypto+AI,” “Berachain,” “DePIN,” and “modularity” were particularly hot topics. These keywords reflect participants’ and the market’s current interests and focus areas within Web3 development. In contrast, the main themes at ETHDenver 2023 centered around wallets, L2s, and ZK, highlighting a significant shift in trends.
ETHDenver Narratives
As summarized by shaaa.eth, Director of Business Development at Bankless, the key narratives at ETHDenver include:
1. Farcaster and Frames were most frequently mentioned in conversations—examples include post tipping, Frames payments, Frames trading, and Frames games.
2. Airdrops and points systems are now seen as optimal solutions for project cold starts; 90% of projects have token plans and intend to launch tokens quickly.
3. The "Restaking Summer" has become a consensus theme at ETHDenver.
4. Berachain-related side events attracted the largest crowds and generated the most buzz. Recommended reading: "Raised $42M, Mainnet Launch Imminent... A Deep Dive into the Overflowing Berachain Testnet."
5. Base also deserves attention—just imagine where users will go next once Coinbase enters the top 10 apps in app stores?
We can clearly see that the development of the restaking ecosystem has exceeded many people's expectations. EigenLayer, as a leading player in this space, is driving this trend through innovative design and technology. In late February, EigenLayer secured $100 million in funding led solely by a16z. Earlier this month, it achieved another milestone—its total value locked (TVL) surpassed $10 billion.
EigenLayer team member kydo.eth outlined the project’s original design philosophy during an ETHDenver session, including its pooled security framework and AVS (Actively Validated Services), which operate externally to EigenLayer’s smart contracts. Notably, this week, rollup aggregation protocol Omni Network announced a $600 million agreement with liquid staking protocol ether.fi. Ether.fi will deposit $600 million worth of Ethereum via delegation to secure Omni Network and strengthen the overall EigenLayer ecosystem. Omni will whitelist ether.fi’s liquidity token eETH and select ether.fi’s node operators to run its AVS. The staked ETH will help prevent security breaches and asset de-pegging. As more projects and capital enter this space, we can expect further innovation and breakthroughs.
An increasing number of projects—including Blur, Blast, EigenLayer, Puffer, and Ethena—are launching points programs to attract users and boost engagement. However, while project teams must carefully design and manage these points systems, users also need to rationally evaluate and participate amid a sea of mixed-quality projects. Recommended: Save our curated list "Potential Airdrop Opportunities."
Since launching the Farcaster Frames feature earlier this year, Farcaster has seen a sharp increase in active users, with monthly active users (MAU) surpassing 100,000 for the first time—demonstrating its innovation and appeal in the Web3 social space. Farcaster Frames function similarly to embedded social media content, using links with special Open Graph tags to display image and text previews, and enabling interactive elements via buttons for dynamic user responses. Recommended reading: "Rising from the Farcaster Community: How Did the Meme Token DEGEN Achieve Organic Growth?"
Additionally, Farcaster competitor Lens entered its “permissionless” phase last month, allowing all users to create on-chain profiles and join the platform. This move undoubtedly enhances its attractiveness and user base. The progress of projects like Farcaster and Lens sends positive signals for the future of Web3 social. However, whether Web3 social can truly take off remains to be seen over time.
Insights from Attendees Reveal Emerging Trends
Regarding attendee reflections and summaries, curvecap.lens compiled insights from 21 participants. Foresight News selected several for translation to help readers better understand the atmosphere, key focuses, and cutting-edge trend collisions at ETHDenver.
Jack Melnick, Head of DeFi at Polygon: My favorite thing to explore is new domains that are clearly becoming central themes this cycle—native yield, Rollups/L2s, cross-chain messaging/modular interoperability, PVP gaming, new ponzinomics, consumer-facing products, and novel DeFi applications.
Darren Camas, CEO of IPOR Labs: Around the main venue, infrastructure projects—from L2s to DAppchains to cross-chain infrastructure—were dominant. But there was a noticeable lack of users engaging in on-chain activities beyond memecoin speculation.
Billy, Co-founder of Term Labs: Aside from price increases, major themes included founders discussing successful fundraising rounds, LPs looking to deploy more into DeFi, EigenLayer changing Ethereum’s game, LRTs, risks associated with AVS launches, mining points, how Ethena’s success might impact perpetual funding rates, the launch of Blast, massive changes brought by Bitcoin Ordinals, and the expectation that Bitcoin will become more diverse through Layer 2 expansion.
Derek, Smart Contract Verifier at Certora: Most ideas I encountered at this event were legitimate, spanning innovations from ZK proofs and verified computation to rollup-based scalability and interoperability, and formal tools for audits and formal verification.
Kostiantyn Dmitriiev: In 2017, the promise of tokenization was improved liquidity. Today we realize that isn't entirely true. While liquidity has improved somewhat, it's still poor. Things lacking liquidity in the real world remain illiquid on-chain. Tokenization is actually about efficiency, cost optimization, speed, transparency, and security.
@xxsvjstu: Representatives from nearly all major L1s, L2s, stablecoins, and lending protocols were present—around 600 attendees. A clear takeaway: forward-thinking individuals view stablecoins and RWA as critical growth directions.
Samuel McCulloch, Author at FlywheelDeFi: This year’s ETHDenver felt “subdued” to me. Despite record-high prices, new capital hasn’t flowed into major projects at the scale seen in the previous bull run. I suspect we’re still reeling from the FTX collapse, and the U.S. regulatory environment hasn’t improved. This year, DeFi wasn’t the dominant narrative—instead, AI and restaking took center stage.
Which Projects Launched New Products or Announced Partnerships During ETHDenver?
In addition, numerous projects unveiled new products or announced partnerships during ETHDenver.
Johann Kerbrat, General Manager of Robinhood Crypto, announced during ETHDenver that the Robinhood Wallet has integrated Arbitrum, allowing users to swap tokens on Arbitrum to reduce transaction costs and accelerate settlement speeds.
StarkWare announced at ETHDenver that it is building a new cryptographic prover called Stwo. The team says the new prover will deliver faster verification efficiency, reducing latency and transaction fees. Anyone can run this prover, and its codebase will be available for anyone interested in experimenting with or implementing STARK-based systems.
Coinbase announced it is launching two new wallet solutions: Smart Wallet and Embedded Wallet. The Smart Wallet will complement the Coinbase Wallet SDK—a software toolkit enabling instant wallet creation in dApps using passkeys without complex processes like seed phrases. It will be built on Coinbase’s Layer 2 network, Base. The Embedded Wallet will be powered by “Wallet-as-a-Service” (WaaS), allowing companies to customize blockchain wallets for their customers.
Cross-chain messaging platform Wormhole introduced its Native Token Transfer (NTT) framework. NTT offers an open, flexible, and composable framework for transferring native tokens across blockchains while preserving their intrinsic properties. Projects built on NTT retain control over how their tokens behave on each chain—including customizability, metadata, ownership, and upgradability—enabling integration with any token standard or governance system.
Web3 developer platform Alchemy launched the public beta of its Embedded Accounts and showcased it at ETHDenver. At a side event music night hosted by BASE, Royal, and Alchemy, performers included DJ and electronic music producer 3LAU and Coopahtroopa, with fans able to claim NFTs simply by scanning their wristbands via Face ID or fingerprint.
Notably, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce expressed regret over regulatory ambiguity during a fireside chat at ETHDenver, stating, “There’s so much optimism here right now, but as a regulator sitting here today, I feel a bit sad. The SEC’s role shouldn’t be to tell people whether crypto is good or bad—it should let the market decide.” Hester Peirce conveyed her positive stance toward the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, while also hinting at the limitations and challenges posed by regulatory presence in this field.
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