Some of Edcons participants went to bed after volunteering at Edcon all day. The other participants salute them for their service. Others went to the center of Montenegro’s capital to try to network and were quickly moving from one place to another, bars, nightclubs but no real events. Still others met at the Sky Bar of the Hilton Hotel with whoever would show up. These were the default situations of many participants the evening of day 0 at Edcon. Many lost participants would end up in the nightclub Biro with its extremely loud music and red lights making it difficult to network:
But then the community got to organizing. A Telegram channel was made to share all of the side events and a web3 event page was made.
https://www.web3event.org/topic/49#Topic
A few notable side events took place, we shall describe some here:
Testera XWinner
On the evening of day 0 of Edcon, around 60 participants in the know were at Testera’s after party getting to know each other and networking. Testera opened up its office and terrace for this side event to help promote networking. Drinks and food were definitely present, and all local cuisine.
Head of Testera Soft, Ivan Ćorić (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivancoric/), and his team of testers were true hosts, very hospitable, and visibly happy to open their office to so many outsiders.
FIrst two days of EDCON, all of us Europeans enjoyed a large amount of guests from the ASEAN region. Zero doubts were had on the reason for that, being sure that Ethereum foundation events draw international attention. Turned out, we were not completely correct. A full-sized separated event, organized by several DAOs based in Asia, has been going on for two days parallel to the conference starting on day 2 at the Hilton hotel:
The Chinese Ethereum community was very present and held many events including some strictly localized by language. Mandarin or Cantonese – sadly, I couldn’t tell.
Santiment Dinner at Porto
One of the highlights of our nocturnal activities was the Santiment Dinner, where we were treated to exquisite food and elite company. That night, it was not business as usual. We were just a group of cool dudes hanging out and appreciating Mediterranean cuisine.
Even Forward co-founder Karnika E. Yashwant (Mr. KEY) and Vlad Martynov, the founder of BlockGeeks, got the memo. Imagine those two in the same place, talking about their favorite vegan foods of all things! It was that kind of night.
In the photo below, you can see Mr. KEY with influencers from Turkey identifying each other from their telegram chats from many years ago.
Then there was us—Yaros Belkin and Philip Cripe—your co-authors, taking in the surreal experience. The nostalgia hits strong as we recall that night from memory, aided by the pictures we took to commemorate a special event, to write this report.
ICP Friends Night Out
On the third night an ICP event organized with Offchain took place at Tarantino, a Culture Club bar in the center. There were local Rakja drinks for the first arrivals and two free drinks at the door for the first to come. A noteworthy drink was the dApperol Spritz (specifically appreciated by Cryptopolitan Events Ambassador Yaros Belkin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ybelkin/) along with a few other aptly named blockchain related beverages. The evening started calm and the space quickly encompassed 150 blockchain enthusiasts. Dominic, ICP’s CEO (https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedwilliams/) spoke, then a panel, and then it was all about networking until the volume started going up. Attendees had to sign up online and they did.
Castle Dinner Party by De.Fi
On the fourth evening a group took a bus and went to a castle for a meal and the view. Besac Heritage Retreat overlooks a beautiful lake and town. Has a winery. And the food was very traditional Mediterranean cuisine. The soup tasted like home-made traditional Provençal soup. The plan was nearly thwarted by the onset of rain halfway through the meal outside. The hosts set up umbrellas over the tables. Conversation was very straightforward about blockchain projects and how to work together, and also about different cities to best live in as a remote blockchain person and other useful sharing of information.
A few side events were organized for specific foods such as the last evening’s Tacos with Nerif (Edcon Edition) and a Pizza night.
When you work hard – you play hard, and that rule has been proven one more time by fellow cryptocommunity members. Incredible energy, warm smiles and relaxed atmosphere was probably the only reason why some of us got through this 5 day festival without a major physical and mental breakdown.
