Notes from «Ded» in Singapore. Day one

I don’t know why I’m writing this or who might need it, but apparently, old age and craving for memoirs are beginning to show.

After two days on the road, Incrypted, thank Buddha, is in Singapore, where TOKEN2049 — the largest cryptocurrency conference in the world — is taking place.

By the way, we are media partners of this event. Yes, there are quite a lot of them there, but last time we were not included, but this time we were. Now we are in the same line-up as CNBS, Bloomberg, CoinDesk, and Cointelegraph. It’s a small thing, but it feels good.

We attended a couple of events on the first day,  but first, let’s talk about the side events in Singapore.

There are… 797 events scheduled for the week of September 16-22. If anyone is interested, you can see the full list here. Are you kidding me? We’ve only been to two, and here are a couple of thoughts that came to mind by the end of the first day:

• why so many?
• some projects know how to do marketing, others — not at all. This becomes particularly obvious when looking at event organization.

The first event we attended was hosted by some DAO with NEAR as a co-organizer. The location — some kind of tech institute. There wasn’t a single sign on how to get there and lost people were wandering around, no one knowing the way.  

The approach of the organizers: find their way/figure it out, while regular people are not factored in. Onboarding next billion? Good luck.

The event itself is in the best traditions of 2013 — microphones didn’t work, catering consisted of water and coffee, and there was a distinct feeling of crypto-anarchism in the air.

But they talked about complex revolutionary tech stuff, AI, the challenges of time in different spaces, and future space technologies. Visionaries, as they are.  

Meanwhile, the queue for a side event without speakers was simply a party at a nightclub organized by Berachain and OKX Wallet. It was obvious that technology wasn’t a priority; all the attention was on the hype, as they picked the top location in the city. Draw your own conclusions.  

A few more conclusions:

• most people don’t really care about the speakers’ presentations. People come for networking. Yet, when deciding where to go, they look at the speakers to gauge the level of the event. And then promptly forget about the speakers and focus on networking in the halls. Quite the paradox. Although, maybe it only seems that way to me, as there are people who sit and listen to the talks;
• networking has become more technical. Everyone knows why they’re there and what they want. This greatly reduces the time for “small talk” about the weather/nature. Instead there is an exchange of information, who does what, who can be useful, exchange of contacts and next, please. Saves time and increases efficiency. Conveyor to share information and find partners or who you need for your specific needs;
• some people travel to conferences with no clear purpose. They’re not developing or selling anything. If a person doesn’t have a project to tell everyone about with an enthusiastic half-smile, doesn’t have some big goal that motivates him, why live at all? I always talk about Incrypted with pride and that same smile. And I wish everyone to find something that will motivate you, something more than just a way to make money;
• there is a “bearish” look on faces, but with a spark of hope for the bull run. Yet, genuinely worthwhile projects are building something new and attracting funds in any market. For instance, Sahara AI, Monad, Caldera, and others (not an ad, yet). Perhaps it’s worth attending these events to discover such projects.

And lastly, so that you don’t waste your time on useless thoughts, here are some facts about Singapore.

There is no change of seasons here, so the weather is the same all year round — about 28 to 35 degrees and high humidity.

Singapore hosts the Formula 1 Grand Prix, right on the streets, like in Monaco, but at night and under artificial lighting.  

The Port of Singapore is one of the (if not the largest) ports in the world. Almost everything is imported — water, food, electricity, and everything else. There’s nothing of their own. Yet, in terms of GDP per capita, Singapore ranks second in the world. It also holds the same spot for safety, just behind Tokyo. It’s very clean and well thought-out in terms of healthy urbanism.  

Follow the updates on Incrypted to not miss new materials about TOKEN2049 and its side events.