ETHDenver has become much more than a hackathon. Attracting more than 13,000 attendees in February, it has evolved into a member-owned community innovation festival that also happens to be the largest blockchain hackathon in the world.
As the first event-based DAO, the event pulls together the most brilliant minds and prolific builders — it is a true breeding ground for ideas, innovation, and the future of Web3. So of course Algorand wanted to be involved in ETHDenver — and we set out to make a splash.
The AlgoRanch
Located just half a block from the main venue, for four days Algorand took over Broadway Market and called it the AlgoRanch. The AlgoRanch was designed to be a “home away from home,” a place for builders, creators, community members, and the general public to connect with like-minded people and generate amazing ideas.
This was where the magic happened:
Our first goal was to put the Algorand ecosystem in the spotlight with talks, panels, pitches, networking, team building activities, NFT minting, workshops, a women’s breakfast, a full-moon party, and a whole lot more.
It was incredible to see how far the ecosystem has come in such a short amount of time with mind-boggling ideas, conversations, solutions and — most importantly — incredible people taking the stage.
(If you missed it, no worries — stay tuned for the full session videos.)
Topics discussed included Funding, DeFi, Building, NFTs, DAOs, The Creator Economy, Algorand’s Roadmap, Bridging & Interoperability, and Web3.0, among others.
Sparks flew, ideas ignited, and synergy was created. There are a lot of reasons to get excited about what the Algorand ecosystem has to offer and what the future holds.
Algorand Keynotes at the Denver Sports Castle
Staci Warden, incoming CEO at the Algorand Foundation, on Thursday evening took the stage at Denver Sports Castle to share her perspective and vision, as well as articulate the myriad opportunities and benefits of getting involved in the Algorand ecosystem.
This included Algorand’s Developer Environment, The Foundation’s current Hackathon & Accelerator programs, $20 Million Ethereum compatibility (EVM<>AVM) incentive program, and much more. Watch the video here:
Staci also sat down with Coindesk — watch the interview here.
The next morning, Rotem Hemo, Director of Product Management at Algorand, took the stage to talk about “Interoperability & Trustless Bridges” and to share an overview of Algorand State Proofs — a revolutionary new feature that will power blockchain interoperability (not just on Algorand — on any Proof-of-Stake protocol) as well as post-quantum security.
Why Algorand?
For many builders, this may have been their first time encountering Algorand, so a common first question was, “Why Algorand? How is it different from __?”
While there are many different answers to this question (which probably deserve a blog post series), Zach of Borderless Capital wonderfully distilled it here during the Algorand Full Moon Party:
The hackathon itself went pretty well too:
Winners were:
Thank You🙏
We firmly believe this isn’t about Algorand — it’s about the solutions built on Algorand, the utility created and (ultimately) the billions of people who benefit from these solutions.
Big shoutout to our friends who joined us in Denver from Reach, Rand Labs, AlgoFi, Arrington Capital, Borderless Capital, Pillar, STOI, Dequency, Illustrated World Series, Flemish Giants, Algoleagues, Tinychart, Humbleswap, The ReCoop, AlgoHQ, Wafer Labs, Plandail, XFinite, Prismatic, Coinocracy, Valhalla Capital, Monarch Protocol, NeoMoon, Insurenimble, GARD, Vendible, Maricoin, Zerobridge, Algomint, Tellor, Kudelski, & more.
Along with thousands of others — these are the companies, projects, DAOs, and (most importantly) the people behind them who make Algorand a success.
The future’s looking good on Algorand.
Save the Dates! Events in the Pipeline
Momentum keeps building and 2022 is turning into an action-packed year of events and activities. While many are still shaping up — here’s a shortlist of opportunities to connect with the Algorand team and ecosystem over the next few months:
