Kamlesh Nagware

Has Ethereum lost its soul? Day 2 at @EFDevcon Mumbai. 🇮🇳 It pains me to say it, but the mood feels a bit disenchanted. You can see it in the half-empty rooms and in the hallway conversations. I've been to every Devcon since Cancún 2017. Back then, the narrative was about inclusion and empowering the weak. For those of us coming from emerging countries, it was a tool to circumvent bad institutions (and maybe build better ones bringing the rule of law where it was lacking.)! Many of us Argentines got into Ethereum because stablecoins were the way around capital controls. It wasn't an ideology. It was a survival tool. For people from advanced economies, it was a way to escape government and big tech surveillance. Then the narrative started drifting. DeFi yields, NFTs, memecoins... Each cycle brought more money and less talk about the common person. There are still talks on those original topics, but more and more the stage seems to reflect the worldview of Silicon Valley elites: transhumanism, longevity, life beyond biology. The contrast couldn't be sharper. Inside, conversations about transcending the human condition, governing societies through futarchy and handing DAO governance decisions over to AI. Outside, the chaos of Mumbai's streets, where millions hustle to survive and deal with very human problems every day. My impression from day 2 is that Ethereum is at a crossroads: solving the problems of nerds and Silicon Valley, or addressing the every day problems of real people. The real test isn't whether Ethereum scales, but for what and for whom. If it ends up as a playground for a tiny niche of insiders talking to each other, we can expect emptier conferences every year. Sorry for the pessimistic take. 🥲 Hoping day 3 finds me in better spirits!