ETHDenver goes beyond cringe to utility, culture and beyond

As ETHDenver draws to a close, builders across Web3 leave with new ideas, developments and utilities led by a unique and multi-hyphenated culture and community interested in everything from wallets to services, privacy, dank sharding, folk music, video games and art.

ETHDenver draws heavily on its unique culture

Cringe aside, people coming together irl is cool. To all the haters:

The cringe song is now the most expensive Song A Day to sell in auction.

5.5 eth, with just under a day to go.

Thanks to @CupOJoseph for the giant swing! And let’s see if @k06a comes back swinging! pic.twitter.com/1DlzwTKMuf

— jonathan @ EthDenver (@songadaymann) March 5, 2023

Privacy pools and zero-knowledge roll-ups dominate tech-side

On the sidelines of ETHDenver, Ameen Soleiman revealed the launch of Privacy Pools, a follow-up to the banned mixer Tornado Cash, which has been sanctioned by the US government and its founder imprisoned in Holland due to its association with North Korean hacking groups. Soleiman, who goes by @ameensol on Twitter, claims that Privacy Pools will enable users to conduct private and mostly untraceable transactions while also discouraging unlawful activities such as money laundering.

13/ Our demo is live – https://t.co/Nt4b2Tgx1D

Now, users have the option to help regulators isolate illicit funds, without revealing their entire transaction history.

Let’s watch a brief video of it in action: pic.twitter.com/An9lWx6jfr

— ameen.eth (@ameensol) March 4, 2023

Zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) rollups also dominated several ETHDenver meetups. Polygon showcased their latest zkEVM rollup and even gave out some free Polygon swag. On what to expect from Polygon’s zk rollup, see CryptoSlate’s summary of Jordi Baylina‘s recent engineering and technical explanation.

Come and say hi and grab some cool swag @EthereumDenver #ETHDenver #zkDeFi #zkEVM @0xPolygonZK @0xPolygonDeFi pic.twitter.com/Hmr2DF9rav

— 0VIX (@0vixProtocol) March 3, 2023

ERC-4337: Ethereum Foundation to announce new standard for account abstraction at ETHDenver

The Ethereum blockchain has deployed a new feature called “account abstraction” that could make it easier for users to recover their crypto if they lose their private keys. This new standard, called ERC-4337, was deployed via a smart contract called EntryPoint and has already undergone a security audit. Launched during Walletcon in the week preceding ETHDenver, the new account abstractions standard is a vast improvement on the order of magnitude problem.

The rumors are true… ERC-4337 has been deployed on mainnet 🚀

🔍 Security audit by @OpenZeppelin
🛠️ Bundlers and paymasters by @stackup_fi, @AlchemyPlatform, @biconomy , @etherspot, @candidewallet, @blocknative & more
🏗️ $300K in grants by @ethereum pic.twitter.com/WOjMvaZe6M

— erc4337 (@erc4337) March 2, 2023

LensProtocol doubles down on Web3

“I would love to see entrepreneurs building small use cases and iterating. Many ideas will fail but the point is to build fast, keep iterating and learning. Lens makes it easier and less risky to experiment,” said Stani Kulechov, founder of Lens Protocol, a decentralized social media enterprise aimed at connecting users with their “digital roots.”

ETHDenver saw the rise of DeFi approaches to all sorts of Web2 problems, social media ownership and identity being only one.

Interest in L1s and DeFi protocols continue

“Filecoin is the world’s largest decentralized storage network! Amassing that quantity of hardware around the world is no small task,” said FileCoin Founder Colin Evran during a presentation at ETHDenver.

In Feb., FileCoin’s FIL token increased by more than 30%, led by interest in EVM’s and interoperability layer-1 protocols. Filecoin’s addition of a virtual machine will transform the network into a fully-fledged layer 1 blockchain. In September, the network unveiled the FVM launch at the FIL Singapore conference, promising that the software platform would support a range of user-programmable applications such as perpetual storage, storage replication, repair automation, and liquid staking through block rewards. Additionally, FVM has the potential to enable the creation of data-centric decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which would enable pay-per-view transactions and the development of Web3 games, among other use cases.