In 2022, we hosted 37 events, gathered more than 3000 people and welcomed 1643 new meetup members! Thank you for being part of the ride, we can’t wait to show you what’s next!
In April we faced our biggest challenge so far by organising ETHDay and DeFi Day during Devconnect. Gathering more than 750 attendees, welcoming 55 speakers and managing 30+ volunteers over 2 days. 😍🤩
This would not have been possible without all of you!
I would like to take a moment and say thank you to Nicoletta and Federico, who helped me every step of the way. Argentina won the world cup, and these 2 won my heart by their relentless support and friendship ❤
Another shout out to Jonathan who I made MC and moderator for both days (what was a thinking!?) and all my anon mentors who helped me cater the sponsors and content on stage to offer the best experience for all attendees.
This whole ordeal would not have been possible without the support of the Ethereum Foundation, and the amazing risk they took by entrusting me with the opening and closing days of Devconnect. Pulling off a decentralised crypto festival of sorts, who 15000 people enjoyed and want to see happen again.
Spreading my crypto wings
After a little break in the land of pho, Maria insisted that I had to get out there, spread my wings and see the crypto world and attend ETHCC and more. You can catch up on her wonderful path in crypto in our chat on the Humans of Crypto Podcast.
I’ve since been following her advice, volunteered at ETHBerlin, witnessed the Merge live 🐼 and attended Devcon Bogota. Finally scratching that international crypto event itch I’ve had for a couple of years. I took every nugget of knowledge with me, as something started to brew and realised I wanted to organise something myself next year…
CryptoCanal is getting bigger 😮
At the same time, CryptoCanal was getting bigger than me, Sterling hosted the first Rotterdam meetup in March, followed by Nicoletta hosting the first Zurich meetup in September… growing our grassroot community and offering a place for their local community to learn and gather once a month.
The team was complete with the arrival of Alina to the gang this August, completely changing the visual landscape of CryptoCanal, revamping our website and making everything much more pretty! 🤩
In the eye of the tornado
I can’t look back at this year, without mentioning Alex Pertsev and the ugly side the Netherlands have shown in their treatment of this case. An awful realisation, that in the land of Gouda, Delft blauw and tulips, The Netherlands would use its might to imprison one of the best contributor to the space, smart contract developer Alex Pertsev. He and his team, gave the world a non custodial, smart contract based privacy tool that can be used by anyone at anytime: Tornado Cash. He sits in jail and his next hearing is set to February 15th. We will be there, and we will keep the fight. I’m not giving up on the Netherlands … yet!
Supporters were also present at the lawsuit in Den Bosch, including Eléonore Blanc of CryptoCanal. Blanc was visibly shaken by the conviction. "He makes tools, if you prosecute him you should do the same with the makers of weapons or even hammers." BNR
More than ever, crypto is political.
Using cryptocurrencies, developing, gathering people is political. We carry a message of financial freedom, open source development, self custody and privacy. This is only the beginning of the separation of money and State and all the FTX/Luna/3AC/Celsius horror cases will not stop crypto. The cat is out of the box and we’re not going back.
To Alex, censorship resistance and privacy, happy NYE! See you at our next meetup, dedicated to privacy this January 18th at, De Nieuwe Anita in Amsterdam.
ps: All applications (speaker, mentor, attendees & volunteer) for ETHDam will open in January, stay tuned! 😘