ETHEREUM’S BIG TENT: Ethereum conferences aren’t only for Ethereans anymore, CoinDesk’s Sam Kessler experiences. Final week’s ETHDenver convention in Colorado, one of many 12 months’s largest gatherings for builders and customers of the Ethereum blockchain, drew in a cross-section of the blockchain business. The broad swath of attendees is likely to be a testomony to Ethereum’s affect on different blockchain ecosystems, attracting onlookers from different crypto tribes. But it surely additionally is likely to be an indication of rival techniques trying to encroach on Ethereum’s success in making blockchains extra programmable, with its vibrant ecosystem of software program builders trying to create new purposes. Bitcoin, within the midst of a developer renaissance with the appearance of its personal NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi) providers, had a powerful turnout of builders on the convention. So did Polkadot, the “hub-and-spoke” blockchain created by Gavin Wooden, an Ethereum co-founder who used to market his new undertaking as an enchancment over the Ethereum mannequin. Even Solana, the speed-focused community that is lengthy positioned itself as an “ETH Killer,” had a well-attended sales space at Denver’s Nationwide Western Advanced, the convention’s venue. John Paller, the convention’s founder and govt steward, advised CoinDesk in an interview that there have been “in all probability seven or eight layer 1s which are right here, and now we have in all probability 12 layer 2s.” Based on convention officers, there have been 20,000 “competition attendees.”
