Crypto's New Center

Crypto Finally Has a Center

By Azeem, Co-founder of Miden and Forbes Crypto Writer

Edited by Ken, ChainCatcher

When I wrote in 2024 about whether the crypto conference circuit was beneficial to the industry, there was no clear center in the crypto world. The entire industry was like a moving city, hopping between conferences around the globe. Two years later, the situation looks very different. Crypto finally has a center again, and increasingly, that center is New York.

Having been part of this circuit for over five years, my experience has gradually changed my view of the actual role conferences play in this industry.

Back then, conference circuits served a real purpose. The industry was highly geographically dispersed. Developers, investors, and founders were spread out in a truly decentralized manner worldwide, and conferences were often the only reliable moments when the entire ecosystem could gather in one place. Around each major event, hundreds of side meetups would emerge. Teams would spend months traveling across different cities throughout the year.

My simple argument was: if this industry truly wants to grow and be adopted, we need to ask ourselves whether spending so much time on the road actually helps us create anything meaningful.

Kicking Off the Conference Boom

Shortly after writing that article, in April 2024, I joined Miden, which had just spun out from Polygon and announced a $25 million funding round led by a16z crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC. At that stage, I felt conference circuits were genuinely making a tangible impact.

Privacy issues were increasingly becoming a key topic in crypto discussions, and launching new protocols meant explaining what we were building and why it mattered so much. This meant that for the next year, most of our time was spent speaking at conferences, appearing on podcasts, and meeting developers, investors, and institutions eager to understand the future of the industry—especially within more pure crypto-native communities.

Like many other crypto practitioners, I spent most of 2025 shuttling between events in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the US. Korea Blockchain Week, Token2049 in Singapore, Devconnect in Buenos Aires, and Abu Dhabi Finance Week were some of my stops.

For teams launching new projects, conferences remain one of the fastest ways to meet people across the ecosystem and start building relationships. And I believe this approach was indeed effective. In a short time, we went from a project known only under the Polygon banner to one of the most talked-about privacy projects in the industry.

Bullish Momentum

Even as parts of the market started to slow down, the industry didn’t immediately change its behavior.

The tail end of the bull cycle extended into 2025, largely driven by the meme coin craze of the previous year. Capital was still flowing. Teams still had travel budgets. Conferences kept expanding on the schedule.

Around major gatherings, side events proliferated. Teams flew from one city to another, often attending multiple conferences within a month.

When markets were strong, these temptations were hard to resist. Conferences offered visibility, investor access, and reinforced project narratives in a cycle where “attention itself often becomes a form of currency.” When this attention drove token prices higher, it was hard to argue against the benefits. But when the bear market hit, things changed.

For a time, despite the objective conditions supporting conference circuits beginning to shift, they kept running at full speed. People were reluctant to admit that the situation was rapidly changing, clinging to past methods that had worked. And that is often a reliable path to failure.

A Market That Now Requires Discipline

Now, in 2026, the landscape looks entirely different.

Funding has tightened. Venture capitalists are betting larger sums on fewer companies. Overall budgets are shrinking, and teams are more cautious about how they spend time and money.

Attending conferences is expensive. Tickets, flights, hotels, sponsorships—these add up quickly. But the real cost is time. When small teams pull multiple members out of work for days or weeks, the opportunity cost becomes enormous.

The industry has finally started asking a question it should have asked long ago: what is the actual return on investment?

Regulatory Shifts

Since I wrote that initial article, another major change has been the regulatory environment in the US.

For most of the past four years, the industry operated under the oversight of the Biden administration and the SEC led by Gary Gensler. During this period, regulatory transparency in crypto remained largely absent. Enforcement actions dominated discussions, and companies struggled to understand how digital assets would ultimately be governed under US law.

As a result, the industry increasingly looked overseas. Cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai competed to position themselves as global crypto hubs, with many companies setting one foot outside the US to avoid regulatory uncertainty.

With Donald Trump’s election, the transition to a new SEC led by Paul Atkins, and the continued leadership of Chair Hester Peirce, along with the formation of a “Crypto Special Working Group” focused on fostering innovation, this environment began to shift.

From a regulatory perspective, this change is significant. Today, the tone toward developers and entrepreneurs is noticeably more constructive than a few years ago. Many companies are finally feeling that the US can be a place where crypto can thrive, not just survive.

Last year, Washington also hit a milestone. The passage of the GENIUS Act established the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins. Companies issuing centralized stablecoins received clearer guidance on how to hold reserves, what collateral types are required, and what consumer protections must be implemented. This was a major step forward for one of the most widely used components in the crypto ecosystem in terms of regulatory clarity.

The next key development to watch is the progress of the CLARITY Act, which aims to address broader market structure issues around digital assets. If passed, it will further clarify how crypto companies operate within the US regulatory system.

These advances collectively indicate that the US is moving from a period of regulatory ambiguity toward a clearer framework for digital assets. For developers and investors, this shift makes it more reasonable to consider where to build and deploy capital.

At the same time, it would be dishonest not to acknowledge the other side. While the government has taken some steps that favor the industry, the way the political ecosystem around crypto is evolving also raises concerns. Particularly, the close ties between certain crypto activities and actions that seem to benefit the president and his family risk damaging the industry’s reputation.

Both realities coexist. Regulatory agencies are more supportive of innovation, but in some cases, Washington’s surface-level approach to crypto has worsened the industry’s image—sometimes more than many critics could do on their own.

Why Conferences Are a Bad Time to Meet People

Around the same time, I started noticing another trend.

Conferences are great for reconnecting and maintaining relationships. But they are often among the worst environments for doing meaningful work.

Everyone’s schedule is packed. Attendees are busy. Locals are even busier, hosting dinners, meetings, and side events all week.

Conversations are rushed. Conference time is short. The people you really need to connect with are pulled in many directions, stretched thin.

In many ways, conferences have become places for nostalgia, where people gather to complain about the market, regulation, or whatever industry debate is happening that week.

Staying After the Conference

By late 2025, I decided to try something different.

I was invited to speak at a privacy roundtable during Abu Dhabi Finance Week. But instead of leaving immediately afterward, I stayed in the UAE for over a month.

Initially, even my own team didn’t fully understand this decision. I couldn’t quite explain why staying so long would be useful. But they trusted my judgment.

The simple reason: if conferences are the worst time to build connections in a city, then what happens if you stay after everyone leaves? You can truly dedicate meaningful time to closing business deals.

The answer was clear. In the weeks following the conference, we engaged in deeper conversations with banks, regulators, and fintech firms in the region.

These discussions led to a partnership with a bank, collaboration with CBIx, and talks with two major fintech companies. Some of this work remains confidential. Given the geopolitical developments in the Middle East, we carefully considered whether now was the right time to announce new regional partnerships.

Conferences open the door. The real work begins afterward.

Real Business Deals Happen Outside the Circuit

I carried this experience into early 2026.

Instead of attending Hong Kong’s Consensus, I used the contacts I made in the UAE to visit Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

In Tashkent, Astana, and Almaty, I met with central banks, regulators, commercial banks, and fintech firms to explore how crypto infrastructure could integrate into their financial systems.

These conversations were far more substantive than typical conference exchanges.

Around the same time, I attended ETHDenver, which has long been one of North America’s premier Ethereum developer gatherings.

But this year, it was noticeably smaller—about a quarter of last year’s size. Partly due to scheduling conflicts with Chinese New Year and Korean Lunar New Year, which prevented many Asian developers from attending. Organizers also reported that many visa invitations they issued were rejected, limiting international participation.

Nevertheless, the signals from the industry remained strong. I personally scheduled more meetings than I could attend during the event. But this experience also confirmed another point: as the industry matures, events like ETHDenver may start to feel less like global gatherings and more like strong regional conferences.

Parallel Worlds in Crypto

Some issues are structural.

Historically, crypto conferences have existed on parallel tracks.

Developer-focused events target protocol teams and builders. Institutional gatherings bring together banks, regulators, and financial firms. Industry conferences gather founders, investors, and media.

Each environment has its value, but they rarely intersect.

Developers talk to developers. Institutions talk to institutions. Investors talk to investors.

True progress in crypto only happens when these groups begin to merge and intersect.

New York as the Center

As US regulatory transparency begins to improve, another shift is clearly visible. Over the past two years, New York has quietly risen as the industry’s hub.

Young developers gather in Brooklyn, often working in co-working spaces like Williamsburg’s Brass Factory. Venture firms like Dragonfly, a16z Crypto, and Bain Capital Crypto are concentrated around Manhattan’s Flatiron and SoHo.

Major projects like Uniswap, Aave, Gauntlet, and Monad now have offices in the city. Plume recently leased an entire floor of the Empire State Building.

Having an office in New York is increasingly a sign that a company has established itself in crypto.

It’s no surprise that New York is becoming the crypto hub. The city has long been the world’s financial, media, and fashion capital. When an industry reaches a certain level of maturity, it naturally gravitates toward places where capital, talent, and influence are already concentrated. Plus, for young developers deciding where to settle, New York remains one of the most attractive cities in the world—beyond work, it’s a compelling place to live.

For decades, the same logic applied to traditional finance. If you want the best jobs in finance, you move to New York. Crypto is now starting to follow that pattern.

If New York is becoming the industry’s hub, it’s only logical that one of the most defining conferences for crypto’s future will eventually be held there. We’re already seeing early signs of this trend. The Digital Asset Summit is held annually in New York and continues to grow in influence, and ETHGlobal plans to host a major event later this year. What remains unclear is which conference will ultimately anchor the crypto calendar in New York.

San Francisco and New York

Meanwhile, another geographic shift is underway.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly centered in San Francisco, while crypto is increasingly centered in New York.

As AI agents and automated financial systems evolve, these ecosystems will increasingly intersect and merge.

But compared to the hype we see online today, this integration may take longer than many expect. Having been in this space for a while, I know well that everything in life takes longer than you think.

Becoming “Small Fish” Again

As the industry matures, crypto companies will need to adapt to environments where they are no longer the focus.

For years, the conference circuit allowed the industry to operate within its own bubble. Founders and investors became like “cool kids in high school,” moving from one event to another, invited to private dinners and exclusive gatherings.

The next phase of growth will look different.

Companies can no longer just attend crypto-native events; they will increasingly need to participate in larger finance and tech gatherings like Davos, Money20/20, or events hosted by major financial institutions.

In these environments, crypto becomes a small fish in a big pond. But that’s exactly where real adoption and application happen. It all depends on who can make this transition smoothly.

Integration, Not Disappearance

Conferences won’t disappear.

The conference circuit is more likely to evolve into a more integrated ecosystem. The industry will no longer be spread across dozens of influential global events, but will revolve around a few major gatherings, with others becoming regional or specialized.

Events that successfully bring together developers, capital, and institutions will become the most important conferences in crypto.

The End of the Moving City

For many in crypto, conference circuits are also a cultural phenomenon.

Here, you meet friends, attend dinners, and reconnect multiple times a year with the same group. For a long time, crypto was like a moving city, hopping between conferences.

Some may look back nostalgically at that era. When the industry was smaller, work felt lighter, and everyone moved from one event to the next together.

But markets are evolving. By 2026, companies that adapt to the new environment will survive, while those clinging to old scripts may face淘汰. Some firms have already gone under this year for failing to keep pace with market changes.

Conference circuits aren’t gone—they’re just changing.

Crypto finally has a center again. As the industry matures, the endless global tour that once kept the entire ecosystem connected will give way to fewer, more focused gatherings, closely tied to the places where real work happens.