Original｜Odaily Planet Daily
Author: jk
From late February to early March 2025, the cold winds in Denver, Colorado, USA, but the enthusiasm of the crypto world is burning in this city. As the largest annual event in the global crypto industry, ETHDenver 2025 arrived as scheduled , attracting developers, investors and project parties from all over the world. From the conference center in RiNo to the cafes and bars in the city center, the discussion of blockchain technology and the sound of keyboard tapping are intertwined, together outlining a picture of the future of the crypto world.
This years ETHDenver not only continued the technology craze of previous years and held an official hackathon, but also demonstrated the resilience and innovation of the crypto industry in cyclical fluctuations in the expectations of DeFi, AI, Ethereum routes and top-level projects. Whether it is the massive entry of institutional investors or the exploration of the AI ecosystem by developers, this event has become a microcosm of the crypto world in 2025. Odailys front-line reporters brought back first-hand experience of the conference for readers.
A billboard at Denver Airport read in large letters: The crypto market is now worth $3 trillion. Do you regret not buying more?
DeFi and AI: Ice and fire intertwined, institutions and developers in parallel
As the worlds largest Ethereum ecosystem event, ETHDenver 2025 continued the enthusiastic atmosphere of previous years, but this years focus presented a more complicated picture. DeFi and AI ecosystems occupied most of the core topics, but the popularity of the two was obviously differentiated:
The Bitcoin ecosystem and institutional entry have become the absolute protagonists in the DeFi field. The entry of asset management giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity and the expectations of the Trump administration have made all the theme conferences with the word Institutional crowded with developers, trying to get a piece of the trillion-dollar market. The institutional compliance custody solutions, the solutions provided by developers to institutions, the future prospects and ETF-based derivatives agreements have attracted a lot of attention. A developer told reporters: Since the institutions have rushed into the market, you can see more and more men in suits in Denver.
An unexpected highlight came from the appearance of Trumps second son. At the DeFi World event, Trump Jr. logged in remotely as a special guest and interpreted many of the outside worlds views and doubts about Trumps current administration. Although some of the speeches were considered to have a strong public relations meaning, they still sparked heated discussions among the participants. If you are interested in his speech, you can read this article Full text of Trumps second sons ETH Denver 2025 dialogue: Newcomers are advised to enter the market with small amounts and continue to learn DeFi .
The AI ecosystem is slightly weak after the price of coins plunged at the end of 2024, but the top projects are still holding high. AI agents such as Virtuals and ai16z have subscribed to several AI Agent Hackerhouses for large sponsorships, and several peripheral activities have been named. The two major public chains, Base and Sui, have spent a lot of marketing budgets to show their support for AI developers at the venue or in prominent places at the event. Although the market has fallen a lot compared to the previous peak of AI, developers have not stopped. Many engineers told reporters that the AI solution conceived in December last year can only come up with an MVP now; I believe that with the help of the public chain ecosystem, the AI concept will not fall in this wave.
Ethereum: Crowded Venue and Divided Consensus
As the home court of the Ethereum ecosystem, Ethereum-related activities at ETHDenver 2025 are still very popular, but there is a hint of anxiety in the air: events hosted by leading ecosystem parties such as Consensys and Linea are hard to get a seat, and the news of the appointment of Ethereums new co-director has become the focus of discussion.
However, in private exchanges in the cafe and outside the event, many participants expressed their concerns: ETH prices have been sideways for three years, but the ecological narrative has become increasingly complicated. Many people have expressed various doubts: Who has confidence in the Ethereum ecosystem when it has performed so poorly in the recent decline? Many technical upgrades have been announced, but ordinary users simply cannot feel the value of these upgrades. What should we do? The foundation is openly selling coins and there are constant quarrels. Is it time to choose a copycat? Various doubts have emerged one after another, and ETH Maxis has almost disappeared. As to whether the two new co-directors of Ethereum can turn the tide, most developers remain on the sidelines.
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PMF, modularization retreat and the turmoil of super-projects
This years ETHDenvers new buzzword began to spread widely: PMF (Product-Market Fit). Whether it is a roundtable forum or a speech, finding PMF has almost become a catchphrase for project founders. The word itself is not new, but just like everyone used to say coin issuance instead of TGE, it has become a new hot spot in the context of the bull market. Projects such as Movement that successfully issued coins were attributed to reasonable PMF, while other projects that went online and broke the issue price were analyzed for various problems from this perspective. It can be predicted that in the next few months, VCs may question the founders of major projects from the perspective of PMF again.
In contrast to the hot words, the modular blockchain ecosystem, which was once in the limelight, has cooled down significantly. The number of visitors to activities such as DA concept and modular theme activities, which were previously very popular at other conferences, has decreased. Developers are more inclined to discuss how to quickly build applications with existing modules rather than the abstract technical architecture itself.
A side event was held at the local transportation museum, which houses a variety of vintage cars.
At the same time, following the successful coin issuance of high-profile high-financing projects such as Berachain, Story, Kaito, and MyShell, the market is looking forward to a number of high-profile projects that will issue coins in the next two quarters:
Monad, the testnet was released in mid-to-late February, and well-known projects such as Uniswap and Layerzero have already been launched on the testnet;
MegaETH, also a public chain supported by high-performance parallel technology, is considered a strong competitor to Monad;
Babylon, as the leader in Bitcoin staking and re-staking protocols, has launched several ecological projects and the market generally has high expectations.
In terms of reasons, people generally attribute the success of these projects to either having top teams, or large amounts of top venture capital financing, or being in line with many current hot spots; participants generally showed great enthusiasm for these projects.
Despite the controversy and division throughout the whole process, ETHDenver 2025 still proved the resilience of the crypto world with more than 30,000 participants and hundreds of peripheral activities. When developers discussed PMF at a party next to the ski resort, when institutional executives and crypto OGs clinked glasses with Denver local beer, the industry seemed to have found its rhythm again - stumbling towards the next cycle in the collision between technological ideals and market realities.
