Buenos Aires definitely exceeded my expectations of a city. Everything from the vibes to the people to the food was absolute 10/10, and I’m personally just counting down the days I can visit again.
The conference itself was also amazing, definitely one of the higher signal-to-ratio conferences I’ve attended this year. As I’m (somewhat) recovering from my travels back, I just wanted to take a step back and reflect on my time there, notable trends and observations, as well as the crypto scene at large in Argentina/South America:
1/ The first thing that really stood out to me was just the sheer talent density at the event. In contrast, I attended a lot of conferences in Asia earlier this year, and while still super interesting, I can’t help but think that those conferences are very “BD-y” in nature. In Asian conferences, devs are outnumbered by BD by a factor of 5:1 (or even more). Devconnect was awesome for the sheer reason that I was able to chat with much more developers talking about what they’re working on, and just being able to have more in depth technical conversations with the people who are actually building the software, not just selling it.
2/ For the above reason, in retrospect I would have really pushed to have a booth at the main event. Getting a bunch of people to drive out is very hard, but renting out a booth where thousands of people are going to walk by and ask questions seems like a no-brainer. I think especially at a conference like this, where there are just so many smart and talented people present, the ROI of having a fun, well-equipped and staffed booth is very, very, high.
3/ Buenos Aires in particular was a perfect host city for this conference. All over the city were advertisements for merchants that accept crypto as well as places where you can exchange fiat for crypto. Even locals were aware of the conference, which was a first for me. Waiters and waitresses telling our tables that they’ve hosted several crypto people this week, Uber drivers showing off their portfolio on the way back to the main venue, and everything in between. Was just really cool to just be able to see this tangible effect in the lives of everyday people.
4/ …Which brings me to my next point in that Latin America is the place to be for payments. Peanut (@joinpeanut) was absolutely everywhere, both inside the main conference as well as around the city. Seeing locals interact with crypto on a daily basis is just not something you see here in the United States. For better or worse, the banking system in America is pretty much complete. There are dozens of banking apps, dozens of ways to send money instantly and for free, a stable currency, no shortage of credit cards, access to credit, etc. So in a way it is quite nice and reminiscent of crypto’s early days, where necessity drives innovation. (Bitcoin for uncensorable, decentralized money, stables for weak currencies with high inflation).
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