Last weekend, from February 14th through 16th, several thousand enthusiasts gathered in Colorado's capital for the third annual ETHDenver conference and hackathon. I was in attendance, so in a slight departure from my usual outside-in commentary, I'd like to give you a little taste of what it was like to be on the ground.



In this week's edition, I'll also give you a brief summary of some of the projects built during the hackathon, including my own team's work. I'll close with my big picture takeaway discussing what the event demonstrates about Ethereum's community.

Before diving in, I'd also like to say thanks. Throughout the weekend, a few of you introduced yourselves and had kind words to say about this newsletter. I appreciate it! I enjoy writing it each week, but it also sometimes feels like I'm typing into the void. It's nice to be reminded there are real humans who enjoy reading it 🙌— okay, onward!

The Vibe

ETHDenver was held in a sprawling, six story building with a factory-like, industrial feel. The dark rubberized floors, which were adorned by thick strips of bright colored tape, tilt into ramps— rather than stairs— as you ascend from level to level. That tape had a purpose beyond mere decoration. It provided a guide to the various presentation stages, break rooms, maker spaces, game rooms, and hackathon work areas setup throughout the building. Link The unique venue was appropriate for the diverse group that gathered there. It really was a fascinating mix of folks, but with hardly any exceptions, I enjoyed the dozens of conversations I had with the people I met. If you'll forgive me a moment of sappiness, I just have to say it: the Ethereum community I encountered last weekend was open, welcoming, curious, and passionate. I really enjoyed my time.

The Hackathon

Despite telling myself I wouldn't, I stayed up all night to work on a hackathon submission. I was surprised to see how many other teams did as well. There were literally hundreds of developers hacking away at 4 AM. Over a hundred teams participated and 80+ submitted final projects.DeFi, DAOs, and infrastructure seemed to be the dominant themes.

The winning submission allowed you to take leveraged positions on the price of DAI ( Link )

) Another DeFi project allowed the creation of decentralized options markets ( Link )

) I was intrigued by one project which aimed to address inheritance planning for cryptoassets ( Link )

) Our neighbors during the hackathon built something neat: a bot that monitors transactions sent from your address and will frontrun any would-be thefts attempted in the event your keys are compromised ( Link )

My team, which consisted of myself and Matt Solomon of Floatify, built a "no loss DAO" by forking the source code of the well known MolochDAO project. Unlike Moloch, where the decentralized organization gives grants from a pool of one-time donations, our DAO directs a steady stream of grant interest to a recipient of the DAO's choosing. The group can vote to change that interest recipient at any time, and members can exit should they choose, taking the full balance of the "donation" they made to join with them. Link I'm pretty proud of what we ended up hacking together, despite it being coded up during a caffeine fueled all nighter. I probably learned more during that 36 hours than I would in a month of normal work at home.

The Values