Here it is:
Here it is, time for a short essay. People in Denver, things in Denver, and me in Denver.
As usual, I want to make a disclaimer. I represent myself, not the company. I write what I want to write, that's it.
To be honest, I arrived quite early this time, unlike last time when I didn't come. But I arrived on the 22nd. At that time, it felt like half of the plane was filled with people from the community. The girl sitting next to me mistook me for someone vectorized. And so began my journey at EthDenver. Overall, I didn't make much effort to attend events or do BD this time. The atmosphere was very chill, like a large gathering of internet friends. I met some devrel friends and a few shilling friends from Twitter. Honestly, it's unlikely that we'll see such a large gathering of internet friends again this year, lol. Although we still have to hack, right? How can we miss such an interesting event! Okay, enough with the jokes, let's get to the point. Let me talk about a few aspects: the events, the vibe, the direction, and myself. Let's start with myself.
In a sense, this week marks my 2-year anniversary in the community, haha. So I took this opportunity to reflect on the past. In the past two years, I have been troubled by the idea of making money. I don't really care about the direction or the investment return of a project. I simply focus on whether the project is interesting and whether it can create something good. I am a very laid-back person. I don't invest or trade cryptocurrencies. It's too tiring, I'd rather write code and be happy. This mindset is probably a reaction to the pressure I faced in college, where I had to work part-time. For me, as long as I have enough to live on, I don't have many desires. I get clothes from projects, I cook my own food, and I have a place to live. I may have entered a kind of freedom earlier than others, so I value spiritual resonance more. So this article doesn't have any advice. For me, I only focus on things that interest me, and I don't have a strong desire to make money. What you see is what you get. Having fewer desires in life is actually a good thing. For me, I hope to keep doing what I love until I'm old, hahaha.
This time, I mainly focused on my own activities and attended a few events that I thought would be very helpful. Thanks to Near's Decentralized Summit, I was able to catch up with some people I wanted to meet. I also met some others along the way. Compared to last year in Turkey, where there were 3-5 events every day, this time it was much more focused. The swag was also more limited. I only got less than 20 items, I just didn't have the energy for more. Meeting old friends was the highlight for me. Speaking of swag, @chainbase's bag was really cool, @oraprotocol's pink hoodie looked great, and @shefi's hat was awesome! Going back to the topic of events, this time I didn't focus much on public chains and restaking. After careful consideration, I think it's better to focus on AI and DevRel. I met a lot of internet friends this time, lol. Americans don't seem to like going out, but it's easier to meet my devrel friends at EthDenver. I'm very happy to meet peers who are deeply involved in the industry and are willing to share. There's a strange sense of closeness because we all have the same worries! Working as DevRel is definitely hard but exciting. I attended some good events, like the DevRel gather by Encoded Club, the classes by Nadar and Yaz, and NPC Day. I'm really happy to see Benny, Jayden, and SheFi doing so well, as well as many other old friends. I just realized that I registered for more than 20 events, but I only actually attended 5-6, lol. It's fate that you get to see me.
This time in Denver, there's another important aspect: the vibe. Honestly, the vibe in the US is quite different from what I imagined. As someone at the intersection of Chinese and Western cultures, I often feel confused. How to do things, how to communicate. It's not about which culture is better or worse, I really like the vibe in Denver. Encoded Club, Developer DAO, SheFi, DevRel, EdgeCity, and Zuzalu. It's clear that everyone is playing in their own little circles. It's hard to explain in concrete terms what exactly this vibe is, but if you play Unlonely, Zora, or Farcaster, then you'll understand what I'm talking about. Continuing with the vibe, let's talk about projects. I'm all about zero paid ads, only vibing. I have high hopes for IYK, Story Protocol, 6551, Base, Farcaster, and Unlonely for sure, but it's still early with AI x Web3. I got 4 IYK shirts this time, fucking lit. Don't tell me it's easy or stupid, the social aspect of Buildthon was played out perfectly by them, it was a direct and effective ice breaker. Story Protocol is really bullish, a new way of releasing IP assets. Their vision and what they want to do align with what I've been thinking for the past two years, there's no reason not to support them. TBA, omnichain TBA, this narrative is just beginning, from April last year to now, it's been humble and steady. The ecosystem around 6551 is gradually taking shape, Story + 6551 + lens, combined with an open lens, I expect to see some cool combinations. Base holds Zora and Farcaster, it's now a gathering place for degens. I predict a combination of Story + Base + Zora will be interesting. Farcaster doesn't need much explanation, it's a playground for degens (but I don't know if Don has been sweating recently, let's just unlock the lens).
Finally, let's talk about my old home, AI x Web3. I can say that we're still very early, really early. The mainstream directions are computing power, data, models, and zkML. Computing power, there are almost 50 projects in this field, but do we really need that much computing power in Web3? Does OpenAI need to train Sora? I'm really curious about this. Secondly, I have a strong bias against this field for the following reasons: decentralized computing power does not equal a computing power matching platform. Please note that none of the mainstream computing power scheduling libraries, such as CUDA/OpenMP/MPI, are designed for decentralized services. CUDA is the epitome of centralization. (Genyson has already pivoted to fine-tuning and training, showing how difficult it is to have verifiable computing power). Next is data, mainly data annotation. We can see many label2earn projects, but I don't have much to say about this. It's reasonable for everyone to click and earn money, but as independent individuals, we can bring reasonable data annotation. ScaleAI is a black box, and we don't know their annotation rules. As for models, I don't think putting models on the chain is a good idea, but as core products, there are many things that can be combined. Lastly, let's talk about zkML. It still feels very early, we are still looking for practical applications (or maybe I'm just talking nonsense, you guys can judge). But it's clear that the timeliness of AI x Web3 is constantly being refreshed. We are seeing more and more projects coming in, but there really aren't many people who understand AI. The concept of MoE, luckily our tech lead explained it to me, my previous understanding was completely wrong. But I believe in the combination of AI agents and the blockchain, to quote Chris Dixon's words in "read, write, own," "blockchain is a computer." Smart contracts as permanent programs running on it and AI are a perfect match. We will see more and more projects combining AI agents and the blockchain. Finally, I want to say that AI is the epitome of centralization. From data collection to computing power to training, it's all centralized. It's because of centralization that AI has made such rapid progress. So think carefully about it.
As for the direction, I didn't attend any panels, lol. I just couldn't listen anymore, I can't take notes like I did last year. It's just too much. Also, I don't pay much attention to many directions, simply because I'm not a VC, I don't make investments, and I don't have that much energy. I think 1-on-1 conversations are often better than panels. But this time, after chatting with people, I realized that L3 is a trend. Let me talk about my thesis. I have always believed that appchains are necessary. We need a separate environment for dapps, where we can increase customization and inherit the features of L2/L1 while ensuring security. I suddenly thought of something else, Nadar joining Eigen. For those who don't know about DevRel, Nadar was previously the Director of DevRel at Arava (Lens and Aave). He is a very representative figure in the DevRel world, especially good at applications. Nadar joining Eigen is probably to fill the gap in Eigen AVS. More AVS applications. And Ritual (Decentralized AI) and Fluent (zkWASM) are also collaborating with EigenLayer. From this, we can see that some of the focus will be on AVS in the future. Let's think deeply about why Eigen needs DevRel. In theory, Jessy as the ecosystem lead should be enough, this is just my speculation.
I judged one hack and also participated in one. I didn't expect to experience the EthGlobal situation at EthDenver. I went back at 11 pm yesterday, had dinner, and saw in the group chat that someone would be on duty all night. So I went back to the venue at 12:30 am to debug. I've been working on it ever since. The hype of Build is still rolling inside me. I initially thought I would just write a little bit every day, but in the end, it turned into a 36-hour EthGlobal event. The main reason is that building is fun, but seeing transactions revert doesn't make me happy! So I stayed up all night on Friday and I'm really happy that we finally made it with the help of the Story team. This time, I built a project to help open-source models. Currently, open-source models don't have effective positive incentives and resources. There are also many open-source projects that are disappearing (I'm talking about you, Type/Chain). At the same time, we can consider fine-tuning models as a form of remixing, which simplifies things. We need a way to prove ownership and trace usage. Story Protocol is a good fit for this. Traditional IP is an abstract concept, but when it is mapped onto the chain, it can be easily operated and visualized. This is one of the most beautiful aspects of digitizing assets. So I tried to do this. I'm really happy and grateful to my boss and colleagues for their assistance. Hackathons are part of the vibe too, work hard, play hard. (If you want to learn more about the concept of Story Protocol, feel free to reach out to me, dog head).
Denver is interesting, I met many interesting Uber drivers. One driver had 7 children and 9 grandchildren, it made me sweat. I marveled at how the US can attract talent while maintaining a high birth rate. Some drivers asked me some Web3 questions, and I suspect the biggest alpha is in the hands of Uber drivers, lol. Maybe I should become an Uber driver at EthDenver next year. In the end, the US is still the best place for vibes, a vibe that you can't experience anywhere else. It's hard to describe, but once you feel it, you might understand. Hanging out with GOATs is so fun!
Finally, catching up is really enjoyable. I met many internet friends (but deep down, I'm annoyed that Americans don't like to travel internationally, it's really frustrating). But I'm happy to see that my favorite friends are doing well. I hope to maintain my original intention next year. Let's vibe.
I think that's everything, but if I forgot something, oh well, hahaha.