What Goes Up Must Come Down

ATH isn’t just for token prices — crypto conferences have succeeded at capping side events

June 18, 2025

GM! 

This edition will mostly cover side event volume:

  • We were wrong about New York

  • Berlin Blockchain Week

  • Event organizers cracking the code on side event control

  • ETHCC

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We were wrong about New York 

There was once a time (2022 to be exact) where everyone flew to NYC for NFT NYC. We expected next week to be big because:

  • NY hosts the most crypto company HQs

  • NFT NYC has once attracted hundreds of side events

  • Permissionless and NFT NYC are happening the same week (June 23-26)

1k side events would have been a reasonable guess. But so far? Only 100+.

The question is: are fewer side events a sign of a broader trend — or just a one-off?

Other upcoming NYC events

  • Ethereum NYC
    August 11–17, a DevConnect-style Ethereum week co-created by Etherealize and Blockchain Builders

  • ETHGlobal New York hackathon & Pragma 

Berlin Blockchain Week is in full swing

Door of the Ethereum Foundation office in Berlin

  • Everything is converging at W3 Hub — Solana, Cardano, Ethereum and other ecosystems are calling it home during BBW.

  • The number of side events rivaled ETHCC this year.

  • We're co-hosting Interop Day with our frens at Li.Fi & Chainflip - join us!

The Anti-Side Event Strategy 

Last year, Devcon didn’t list side events that clashed with their main schedule. ETHDenver did the same—excluding overlapping events from their side events page.

Conference organizers are becoming more aware of the financial risks side events can pose and are taking a more active approach in curating them.

But this idea didn’t start in crypto.

In Cannes, local businesses collaborate with whoever's running the main event at the Palais—whether it's Cannes Lions or another festival. They back the main organizer, share intel, hike prices, and even label competing events as “parasite events.”

And so ETHCC side event stats have gone down

  • 2023 ETHCC Paris: 203

  • 2024 ETHCC Brussels: 549

  • 2025 ETHCC Cannes (so far): 200

    Normally tickets sell out weeks before, but this year the venue has scaled to a much larger capacity (8k+).

But even 10k people is peanuts to Cannes.

Film festivals can attract up to 40k people. Last year during Cannes Lions, Pinterest privatized an entire beach— reportedly costing $1M+.

Netflix turned the JW Marriott rooftop into an immersive brand world: F1 simulators for Senna, croquet courts for Bridgerton, and an ice cream bar from Stranger Things.

TLDR; ETHCC is more centralized with significantly fewer side events this year.

But crypto is still tiny compared to Cannes Lions in terms of what side events can look like, their budget, and the number of attendees.

Community Update

What our members have been up to

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