ETHEREUM’S BIG TENT: Ethereum conferences aren’t only for Ethereans anymore, CoinDesk’s Sam Kessler reviews. Final week’s ETHDenver convention in Colorado, one of many 12 months’s largest gatherings for builders and customers of the Ethereum blockchain, drew in a cross-section of the blockchain business. The broad swath of attendees is perhaps a testomony to Ethereum’s affect on different blockchain ecosystems, attracting onlookers from different crypto tribes. However it additionally is perhaps an indication of rival methods seeking to encroach on Ethereum’s success in making blockchains extra programmable, with its vibrant ecosystem of software program builders seeking to create new functions. Bitcoin, within the midst of a developer renaissance with the appearance of its personal NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi) providers, had a powerful turnout of builders on the convention. So did Polkadot, the “hub-and-spoke” blockchain created by Gavin Wooden, an Ethereum co-founder who used to market his new challenge as an enchancment over the Ethereum mannequin. Even Solana, the speed-focused community that is lengthy positioned itself as an “ETH Killer,” had a well-attended sales space at Denver’s Nationwide Western Advanced, the convention’s venue. John Paller, the convention’s founder and government steward, advised CoinDesk in an interview that there have been “most likely seven or eight layer 1s which can be right here, and we’ve most likely 12 layer 2s.” In response to convention officers, there have been 20,000 “pageant attendees.”