DevCon has emerged as one of the hottest extravaganzas on the crypto calendar, bringing together the most innovative Ethereum builders, explorers, entrepreneurs and users from around the world, and the 2024 edition in Bangkok was one of the most insightful yet.
If you didn’t make it to the event, don’t worry, for we caught up with a number of representatives from leading crypto companies that graced DevCon with their presence to help us define the narratives on everyone’s lips. So let’s look at a quick rundown of what everyone was talking about, and how these developments will shape the future of the Ethereum ecosystem going forward.
AI’s Intersection With Crypto
One of the major themes throughout the event was the rise of AI, and attendees were only too eager to elaborate on the ways that technology will be integrated into blockchain and DeFi especially, with a focus on expanding access and automation.
“AI agents have emerged as one of the most likely use cases, starting with social media avatars and later, leading to all sorts of personalized agents,” said Ken Timsit, managing director of Cronos Labs.
Himanshu Tyagi, co-founder of Sentient said he thinks most attendees will remember Devcon 2024 as the conference that marked the beginning of the rise of crypto and AI.
“There was a lot of excitement around social bots connected to crypto rails, interacting with the community through twitter or discord,” he said. “These bots will inspire the next generation of crypto products, and we need new tech to keep them aligned with communities. What’s more, I feel that next year will be completely about crypto and AI. Social bots will evolve to multiplatform, multi-AI creatures playing coordination games with the crypto community. I won't be surprised to see some regulation forbidding AI to launch tokens.”
Although bots and agents were the most often-discussed use cases, Tyagi also thinks AI can also play a growing role in enhancing crypto security. Asked what he felt was the most impactful moment at DevCon, he highlighted the release of OML 1.0 fingerprinting library of Sentient at the Open AGI summit.
“These fingerprints will evolve to be the foundational blocks for Model Loyalty, making sure that the model can be controlled and kept aligned with the community,” he promised.
Security Still A Major Focus
As always, the need for better security systems in crypto was ever-present on the DevCon agenda, and attendees were encouraged by a number of developments that suggest progress is being made.
Nelly Cornejo, CMO at iExec, said the highlight of the event was a talk about the impact of TEEs (Trusted Execution Environments) and how they can help further decentralization of Ethereum.
“TEEs have the potential to push the protocol to its edges,” he said. “When paired with other cryptographic approaches, we can achieve this level of decentralization without giving excessive power to manufacturers.That’s why, since 2018, we at iExec have been leading the charge in combining Confidential Computing with blockchain technology. It’s incredibly exciting to see this space evolve, with more and more use cases being discovered and developed.”
dRPC CEO Constantine Zaitcev said an interesting point was made during the "Abstract Bangkok Panel” discussion involving Vitalik Buterin and other prominent crypto leaders on the topic of account abstraction.
“This conversation not only highlighted Ethereum’s commitment to decentralization but also showcased how technical advancements like Schnorr signatures can significantly improve user experiences in areas such as wallet security and usability,” he said.
Zaitcev is also optimistic about increased regulation in the crypto industry. “It will lead to clearer frameworks, balancing innovation with compliance,” he explained. “This will foster more institutional adoption while addressing concerns around data privacy and security.”
L2 Networks Gather Momentum
Layer-2 networks were easily the most commonly recurring theme at DevCon. Cornejo said it has become clear to everyone in the Ethereum community that infrastructure is the key to scaling and usability.
“Scaling upgrades have significantly lowered transaction costs—sometimes by as much as 99%,” he said. “For example, back in 2021, Ethereum transactions involving USDC averaged around $12 in gas fees. By September this year, that dropped to about $1 on Ethereum and less than a cent on Base, Coinbase’s L2 network. This is a massive improvement, especially when compared to the $44 average cost of international wire transfers today.
Cronos Labs’ Timsit said his company’s side event, hosted alongside Google Cloud, ZKSync and others has made it clear that interoperable L2 blockchains are going to get even more attention in the New Year. “L2s, particularly zero-knowledge L2s, are going to become the priority solutions for growing Ethereum’s ecosystem in 2025,” he predicted.
According to Zaitcev, there are lots of reasons to be excited about L2s, but the most pressing benefit is prices and cost optimization.
“The continued rise of layer-2 solutions and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) will make blockchain interactions more affordable and efficient, with dynamic pricing models for infrastructure services becoming standard,” he promised.
Cornejo believes L2s themselves are already having this impact, and are one of the major reasons why blockchains in general are growing so rapidly.
“Blockchains are now processing more than 50 times the volume they could just four years ago, thanks to Ethereum’s Layer 2 solutions, high-throughput blockchains, and the ETH Dencun upgrade, which drastically reduced fees for L2 networks,” he stated.
Priorities Will Shift
The emergence of so many prominent L2 networks has led to a lot of rivalries between them, with the likes of ZK rollups and optimistic rollups all competing for users and trying to outdo each other. But in the coming year, Mark Smargon of Fuse.io thinks those networks will be much less focused on each other, and much more aware of where the real competition is.
“Right now, people are thinking about past problems that might be interesting for our investors, instead of considering future problems that we can solve for our consumers,” Smargon said. “There is too much debate about L2's competing with each other, and how Ethereum is competing with Solana. In a year from now I predict we will not hear about those competitions because we need to grow the pie and once we do that, crypto will get 100-times bigger and every team will realize that their main competition is Web2.”
The Memecoin Hype Will Expand
No Ethereum roadshow these days is complete without a mention of memecoins, and Cornejo believes they will continue to grow as a force on Ethereum, as there are no signs of the hype around them letting up.
“Memecoins continue to gain popularity in this cycle,” Cornejo said. “Google Trends shows that searches for "meme coin" and "meme coins" are at their highest levels in five years. Pump.fun also reached a record with 69,046 new tokens launched in a single day. However, it’s crucial to remain cautious as market conditions evolve. As Keynes famously said, “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.””Nate Holiday, CEO of Space and Time, captured the essence of the post-Devcon 2024 sentiment with his succinct yet powerful statement:“ETH is still king for developers. Ignore the noise. Keep building.”
His words reflect the overarching mood among the Ethereum community and Web3 developers, emphasising Ethereum's enduring dominance as the foundational blockchain for innovation and development. Despite the rise of competing ecosystems and the noise surrounding new narratives, Holiday’s message underscores a key takeaway from Devcon: Ethereum remains the go-to platform for developers seeking robust infrastructure, active community support, and a mature ecosystem.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice
