Devconnect Istanbul 2023 – A celebration of progress and the Ethereum community

Devconnect, the week-long gathering of the Ethereum ecosystem and community, concluded its second edition in Istanbul. The week saw over 3,500 participants from diverse backgrounds come together from November 13-19 at the Devconnect Cowork in the Istanbul Congress Center, and many more join the 70+ deep-dive events organized by independent teams in the Ethereum community. Events took place at various locations across the city and beyond, celebrating the breadth and depth of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Thank you to everyone who was part of Devconnect! We are so happy that everyone that was able to join us for an intense week, brimming with conversations, talks, workshops, and real-life connections. A massive shoutout is owed to all the independent organizers, volunteers, and to all the attendees who participated, discussed, and contributed.

A week of learning, sharing, and progress

At the heart of Devconnect was its focus on progress for the Ethereum ecosystem. As a gathering built by and for the community, many teams in the ecosystem organized independent events focused on their respective Ethereum expertise. Key topics ranged from Layer-2 scaling solutions and programmable cryptography to real-world applications, showcasing the versatility within the Ethereum ecosystem and community. One notable technology used for Devconnect ticketing was Zupass – an open-source tool built by developers from the Devconnect and Zuzalu communities. Zupass enables the creation of ZK proofs to, for example, verify event attendance.

Devconnect IST brought together our global community in one place, sparking real-life connections that are so important for our decentralized ecosystem. The Cowork attendees’ backgrounds were varied, including developers (33.7%), founders (19.4%), researchers (11.6%), marketers (5.8%), designers (2.4%), and more. This mix of backgrounds and expertise fostered a unique environment for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Local impact and global connections

A unique aspect of this year’s Devconnect was the remarkable involvement of the local Turkish Ethereum community. A plurality of all Devconnect Cowork attendees were locals from Türkiye, making them the largest group with 17.5% of the total attendees. Events like ETHGünü and notDEVCON by ITU Blockchain, the biggest blockchain club in Istanbul, emphasized the significance of local communities and sparked connections between local and global communities.

Looking Forward

As we reflect on the success of Devconnect IST 2023, it’s clear that this event is part of a larger evolving trend within our decentralized ecosystem. Devconnect’s unique format, similar to the format of Zuzalu and Zuconnect (which took place just before Devconnect in Istanbul), represents a new paradigm of our decentralized ecosystem – coming together for a week or longer, working collaboratively on the challenges we face, and making tangible progress.

Join us next year

We are excited that our next event will be Devcon 7, which will take place in Southeast Asia in November 2024. Stay up to date with the latest news on the Road to Devcon by subscribing to our newsletter.

Keep connecting

• Check out more photos from Devconnect IST here
• View Devconnect IST events, their recaps, and photo galleries on their websites, here on the calendar
• Follow Devconnect and Devcon on X/Twitter for updates: @EFDevconnect, @EFDevcon
• Connect with Devconnect attendees in the Community Hub (you’ll need to ZK proof that you have a ticket to one of the ZK ticketed Devconnect events)

Yours sincerely

Devconnect team 🦄