Imagine arriving at a conference at eight in the morning and dance music is playing. Has it ever happened to you? If it’s a crypto conference, be prepared for such surprises. TOKEN2049 Conference was held in Dubai on 18-19 April. When the conference was in Dubai, it brought together both the crypto world and the activity in Dubai. Although the heavy rains and floods earlier this week affected the attendance at the conference, the crowd that came was very remarkable. The fact that this conference is being held in Dubai for the first time, the recent rising prices in cryptos and the fact that the Bitcoin halving coincides with this weekend suddenly attracted all the attention in the crypto world to Dubai.
In this article, I will share my observations with you as someone who comes from traditional finance. I would like to underline in advance that this will not be a very technical article.
When I looked at the average age of the guests, I observed that they were much younger. The fact that people like me who come from traditional finance view this issue with a bit of skepticism actually creates such an image. Apart from age, I also want to draw attention to clothing. Particularly, unlike bankers, participants prefer more comfortable clothes, not suits and ties. You can see t-shirts on some, hats on some, chains or many different clothes on some. I think they choose this style of clothing as if it represents a kind of democratization of money or liberation. The balance between men and women is also very equal. As someone who has worked as a fund manager for years, I have observed that there are slightly fewer women in the sector. The crypto world is more balanced.
The method of changing contact information is also different. Older people like me usually give business cards or share phone information lately and use WhatsApp. The crypto world revolves almost exclusively on Telegram. Almost everyone has Telegram groups, and sharing contact information is almost always done via Telegram. In fact, I have to say that when one of the speakers was the CEO of Telegram, a very large hall was packed. I couldn’t even enter the hall standing. Apart from this, the remarkable conference program can also be a traditional conference, for example, breakfast, then panels, then coffee break, panels and lunch. There is also a panel part in the crypto conference, but especially the entertainment part is also very active before the conference starts, for example, a yacht party after the conference or while the conference continues. It is very remarkable that there is a beach party or other parties in the evening, I can say that they know how to have fun very well.
Let’s see what is talked about most. Some of the most notable words: artificial intelligence, Zero knowledge technology, blockchain, stablecoins and Real World assets. These were among the most talked about topics. It seems like a healthy development, especially the sharp decline following the Bitcoin rally a few years ago and the so-called crypto winter. So, it seems like there has been a clean-up in the crypto world, regulations have become a little more understandable, and both technology and institutional investors seem to be a little more involved in this business. This shows that the distinction between us and them in the market has disappeared somewhat. There used to be a perception that there were only crypto believers and non-believers, and they were very far apart. Now we see that these two sides are getting closer together. In fact, this definition is not even correct in terms of the health of the market. So, I think it would be healthy for both parties not to see each other as a different side and to see each other as the same side.
Let’s talk about the profile of the participants. I told you you were young. When I look at nationalities, I see a lot of Russians and Ukrainians. On the other hand, we can say that the interest in crypto assets is even higher in countries that struggle with inflation, whose currency loses value or fluctuates a lot.
You can think of this article as the observations of someone who is not too close to the crypto world, but not too far from it either. As someone who has worked in financial markets for many years before, I think that if the crypto world wants to attract people like me or those who do not know the crypto world, it should use the communication side very well. If the real usage areas of digital assets can be explained correctly with some technical developments, I think more people and more institutional investors will be interested in this field. Here, too, I observed that new media is used more because young people are more inclined to this subject than the mainstream media. Especially Twitter and Telegram are very active in this regard. But I think it’s something he needs to think about.
TOKEN2049 was the biggest crypto conference I attended. As a final note, let me say this: after seeing the interest here, looking at projects and talking to many people, I think it would be a deficiency not to follow this field and I invite everyone to the world of digital assets.