ETHDenver’s Bumpy Year: Why Did Attendance Plummet Over 80%?
Original Article Title: "Side Event Activities Plunge Over 80%, Why Did ETHDenver Fall from Grace?"
Original Article Author: Zen, PANews
With ETHDenver's opening day fast approaching, there is less than a month to go. This annual developer gathering, highly anticipated by the cryptocurrency industry and held at the beginning of each year, has grown in popularity over the past three years. In 2025, even during a period of continued stagnation for Ethereum, ETHDenver still managed to attract nearly 20,000 attendees to Denver.
However, this Ethereum-themed major developer event has taken a surprising downturn this year, contrary to its past upward trend. Data provided by the cryptocurrency event information platform CryptoNomads reveals this trend:
During the 2023 conference, there were around 176 side events, which increased to 325 in 2024, and surged to 668 in 2025. However, as we enter 2026, with less than a month to go until the official start of the conference, the number of confirmed ETHDenver side events stands at only 56, marking a drastic decline of around 85%.
As the side event frenzy experiences a "bursting of the bubble," with once abundant side events seeing a substantial reduction, this contrast sends a clear signal and has become a poignant footnote to ETHDenver's decline and even the current industry downturn.
How did ETHDenver go from unprecedented success to a sudden downfall?
The Myth of Over-Commercialization
Originating from local Ethereum community meetups in Denver, ETHDenver has always had a strong "festive, carnival-like" atmosphere. As a conference specifically aimed at developers, its free tickets, community-driven approach, and core mechanism centered around a buildathon set it apart from the heavy commercial atmosphere of traditional conferences.
Furthermore, Denver's central location in the United States, coupled with the relatively low cost of hosting an event in this non-coastal city, has helped reduce overall costs for attendees and participants. Therefore, for a long time, ETHDenver has resembled more of a community gathering compromise point, rather than a high-cost showcase set in a coastal metropolis.
However, over the past few years, there has been increasing criticism pointing directly at the conference's positioning and changing atmosphere. Many have questioned whether ETHDenver is transitioning from a tech event that once celebrated open-source hacker culture to an overly PR-centric brand exhibition.
During the grand ETHDenver 2025 event, some attendees joked that their experience felt like accidentally walking into a corporate trade show. They were expecting to enter the "holy land of decentralized innovation," but as soon as they entered the venue, they were surrounded by a dazzling array of corporate booths, with major sponsors dominating the scene, and even Polkadot's booth was giving out free socks to attract attention.
The original open, inclusive, and non-ticket revenue-dependent purpose has also fueled the significant penetration of commercial sponsorships into ETHDenver. The atmosphere of the conference has gradually transformed as a result. This shift towards a more commercialized event has led some Ethereum community developers to lament that the conference is losing its grassroots hacker spirit of the early years, diluted by strong commercial promotion.
Dilution of the Ethereum Narrative
At the same time, the Ethereum-themed focus of ETHDenver has come under scrutiny.
Many attendees have noticed that in recent years, the conference has invited and accommodated numerous projects and sponsors outside the Ethereum ecosystem, causing the theme to become more generalized and blurring the conference's Ethereum-centric nature.
This criticism caused a stir in 2025, to the point where co-founder John Paller had to publicly respond. He used data to clarify that over 95% of sponsors and 90% of the content are still related to Ethereum and EVM-compatible ecosystems.
However, many still expressed dissatisfaction with the exposure of other public chains and unrelated topics at the conference. Some pointed out that since ETHDenver is not an event officially organized by the Ethereum Foundation but merely uses the "ETH" name, it is easy to incorporate various unrelated projects, diluting Ethereum's original thematic focus.
When even on the main stage there were guests advocating for the "fall of Ethereum" and switching to other chains, while booths of other ecosystem projects stood in the exhibition hall, the feeling of the theme going off track and losing direction intensified the discomfort of community veterans.
More worrying is that the industry's diversity in narratives and categories is becoming less prevalent, and many pathways are disappearing. Influenced by the broader environment, ETHDenver has also lost its past creative spark.
The term "creative exhaustion" has become feedback from many participants.
The Rise and Fall of Expectations for Crypto New Policies
Behind the rise and fall is also a significant impact related to the Trump administration's influence on industry sentiment. The "Crypto President" took office in early last year, greatly raising the industry's expectations for his new crypto policies. A large number of attendees entered ETHDenver, held in early in the year, with visions of the "crypto spring" arrival.
However, after a round of symbolic regulatory loosening, the industry's situation did not improve effectively. While various global risk assets, national stock markets, and all kinds of metals surged, only cryptocurrency remained at the bottom, and the narrative of Anything but crypto stung the crypto community.
At the policy level, although the Stablecoin Bill was implemented in July last year, a more comprehensive regulatory framework is still in progress. Currently, the progress of the cryptocurrency market structure bill is not optimistic. The Senate Banking Committee has been delaying the cryptocurrency market structure bill, extending it to late February or even March, with its focus shifting to more urgent housing legislation involving people's livelihoods. This verbal expectation of new policies, in sharp contrast to the disappointing reality, has also dampened people's enthusiasm for participation.
Clash with Lunar New Year
In addition to the above reasons, ETHDenver 2026's opening day is set to be on February 17, coinciding with the "clash" with the Lunar New Year in 2026.
If European and American participants can still treat ETHDenver as a workweek, for many Chinese and even entire countries and regions influenced by the Confucian culture, this week is the least suitable for business travel throughout the year.
After all, the Spring Festival is the most important cultural holiday, and compared to small meetups, demo nights, and closed-door ecosystem meetings that heavily rely on "crossing time zones" and "team collective travel," most people will choose to set aside a busy and frustrating year, reunite with their families, and celebrate the New Year together.
However, from the official narrative, ETHDenver 2026 still places "builders" at the center and attempts to make the event space, content, and experience more integrated. For teams truly aiming to deliver, this centralization may enhance efficiency: no more need to spend energy on city routes and information noise.
From the controversy itself, criticism does not mean death. The ongoing debate around it also indicates that it is still anticipated and still considered a symbol of industry culture.
The real issue in 2026 may not be how many fewer attendees there will be, but whether, as the cryptocurrency bubble recedes and hot money flows out, we can still rely on the technology and the community itself to retain those willing to go through the cycle.
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