Bear market pushes crypto events to cut fluff, prioritize discourse

The extended crypto winter has pushed crypto event organizers to tone down on the lavishness, allowing attendees to focus on asking more “intelligent questions” about regulation and tax.

Crypto conferences attract all sorts from the crypto space, from founders and high-level executives to crypto influencers and everyday users.

Tiffany Fong, a crypto vlogger who gained fame interviewing former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried following the collapse of the exchange, is attending crypto conferences for the first time this year.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Fong — who attended both Bitcoin Miami 2023 and NFT NYC 2023 — said she “can’t speak to how conferences used to be in the bull markets,” but has been told by other attendees that it is lighter on the entertainment side this year.

“People have named dropped huge DJs that have performed in past conferences during bull markets and point out that the parties and events are much tamer this year.”

Fong isn’t too “bothered by this year being more tame” as she believes the enthusiasm for crypto remains strong and is an opportunity to meet others in the industry.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, XRP Las Vegas — a conference for XRP (XRP) fanatics and the “XRP-army” — took place on May 6 and 7 in the United States’ gambling capital.

Attendees showed “great optimism over crypto’s future,” pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton told Cointelegraph.

Deaton, who has been an active social media commentator throughout the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple lawsuit, said XRP fans were asking “well thought out, intelligent questions” at the conference. Still, he could sense the frustration in their questions.

“I wouldn’t classify their emotion as one of fear but frustration because it shouldn’t be this difficult or take this long to achieve regulatory clarity in the United States.”

Deaton further added that the frustration was towards the SEC chair Gary Gensler’s “regulation by enforcement” approach to crypto, following the SEC taking action against several crypto firms in recent times.

It’s taken 2+ years to finally meet in person, but today I was blessed to spend some time with The Legend, The Marine, and @GaryGensler’s worst nightmare; one badass, ethical, skilled lawyer with 75,000+ unpaid research assistants. @JohnEDeaton1 is such a force of nature, he’s a… pic.twitter.com/zwOeSxDIFV

— Rob Cunningham | KUWL.show (@KuwlShow) May 7, 2023

Regulation appears to be top of mind for the crypto community in Australia too.

Regulation was “by far” the most popular point of discussion among attendees at Binance Australia’s most recent meetup event on May 3, according to Ben Rose, general manager for Binance Australia and New Zealand.

Rose told Cointelegraph that crypto tax was another topic that had a high level of interest from attendees.

He added that there is still “interest from the crypto-curious” despite the bear market.