Should you fly to Denver? Plus 6 predictions for 2026

GM,

Every year, people say they're skipping Denver because of weather or location. Every year, they show up anyway.

What's different this year:

• Bear market spending cuts

• Lunar New Year overlap means fewer Asian attendees

• Side events tracking at half of last year's pace (heading toward ~350 vs 668 in 2025)

Still, 350 side events is far from insignificant.

Check side events list here:

• 🇺🇸 ETHDenver list 

• 🇭🇰 Consensus HK list

In this issue, we’ll cover our 2026 predictions & events we’re paying attention to.

Want to sponsor the next issue? Hit reply 👋 

Stablecoins and institutions are pulling crypto companies out of their echo chambers. New audiences deliver better ROI than the same crypto conferences.

Some fintech events:

• Money 20/20 Asia, Europe & USA

• Stripe Sessions by Stripe

• Hong Kong Fintech Week

• Singapore Fintech Week

• Abu Dhabi Finance Week

Full list on our site

From our sponsors - Parallel Society

• Companies learned the hard way: hackathons don't produce the best ROI. For some, going after builders has become a race to the bottom.

This isn't the hackathons' fault. 

• Not enough talent is entering crypto and without PMF, builders won't hack on something they’re not sure has a future.

Our hot take:

• Companies should embrace what hackathons are good for: product QA.

• There is PMF in DeFi and stablecoins — it's easier for companies to build something from scratch than to find a founder who will deploy on their protocol.

Crypto needs events more than any other industry. With increased competition, creativity is now the real differentiator.

Fewer happy hours and panels. More wellness, sports, and creative activations:

• Padel had its moment last year

• Uniswap Cup let attendees bet on matches via prediction markets

• Horse race betting, drone shows, sensory dinners, candlelight concert, cat statue burning to signify token supply burn—the bar keeps rising.

AI offers faster paths to market and better tooling. Crypto requires deep protocol knowledge with less immediate gratification.

• Crypto lost 1,000 jobs to AI since ChatGPT launched

• 92% of Y Combinator's Fall 2025 batch incorporated AI, while crypto startups were notably absent

• A16Z data shows vibe coding has unleashed a torrent of new iOS apps

Talent and capital that might have gone to crypto is going to AI. This trend will likely continue.

• Last year companies were paying to fly builders around the world: Monad's NYC residency, Scroll Campus Malaysia, World hackathon in NYC and Argentina.

• Bear market changed that. Funding has dried out and so did sponsorships and residencies.

Events slowing or cancelled:

• NFT Paris canceled

• Art Basel crypto events (back to just trad art)

• Permissionless put on hold

• ETHWarsaw & other local ETH events (some are still TBD, like ETHSF)

Token2049 is faring better than most thanks to their retail & institutional focus. The organizers even locked down popular side event venues in the Madinat Jumeirah Dubai — if you want to host a side event there, you go through them.

Dubai has built the regulatory infrastructure and has a longstanding pro-crypto government.

• VARA (Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority), the first independent regulator for virtual assets, legalized RWA tokenization

• Solana Foundation signed with VARA to launch the Solana Economic Zone

• Hadron Founders Club opened a Dubai campus with P2 Ventures committing $50M to Polygon ecosystem founders. It is also one of the Ethereum Foundation’s hubs for builders 

• RockawayX, a VC firm managing over $2B+ in assets, is building Solana City—a physical workspace for web3 founders

• Major players like Binance, Circle, and OKX have established operations in Dubai

2026 events we’re paying attention to

Feb: Consensus HK, ETHDenver
Mar: Digital Asset Summit, ETHCC
Apr: Token2049 Dubai
May: Consensus Miami, ETHMilan
Jun: ETHConf New York
Jul: Science of Blockchain Conference (Stanford), ETHGlobal Lisbon
Aug: TBD
Sep: Korea Blockchain Week (dates TBD)
Oct: Token2049 Singapore
Nov: Devcon, Solana Breakpoint
Dec: Abu Dhabi Finance Week

Full list