Tomorrow conference 2023

Gotta summarize this conference held in Belgrade last weekend, 12th to 14th. First, Belgrade was a great host, nothing bad I can say about it.

But there are several things that bugged me during these 3 days…

1. It was held in Arena, space so big that even small stages in holes were ~40% filled. And you can imagine how it felt on the main stage which was in the center of Arena. Most of the panel talks and presentations could be held in a space far less. Last year the conference was held in one hotel, and it was much better. Don’t let the recaps from social media fool you, it was empty.
2. Talks were badly planned. There was time overlap for most of them. It feels bad to know I paid a ticket for all days, and I can’t attend all panels, but I have to choose which one to listen.
3. Speaking of paying, in the last week before the conference started, free tickets started to circulate and not a small amount. Everyone was sharing it. Did organizers conclude that event will be almost empty considering the size of Arena, and started to give away tickets for people just to come, I can’t tell for sure, but I am suspecting…
4. Speakers - poorly selected, at least. Aside Dr. Al Zarouni from Dubai Economy and Tourism, and Loretta Joseph who was the real OG here (probably the only as well), nobody else had anything smart to say. I went to one panel where speakers didn’t even know how to answer moderator’s questions, so he had to answer for them! Some people from traditional finance shouldn’t got a chance to speak here, it was clear they still need to learn. I expected more from Dan Held, his topic about Ordinals kept me there till Sunday, 5pm. Turns out he didn’t even come, he held it via Zoom, and he spent most of the time talking how price speculation drives adoption!? Literally 2 sentences about Ordinals. And the topic was about that specifically. I mean…
5. The most important conclusion after this conference: There is crypto, and there is Bitcoin. Whoever says differently, is totally oblivious. If all the people building different projects just focused their energy on Bitcoin, and tried to build on top of it, this space would be far more advanced than it is now. We don’t need 100 new blockchains, nor 100 new Metaverses. We need people to improve the only network that is proven to be immutable, secure, and decentralized.
6. No networking at all. At some point, I can understand this, projects/companies with small “offices” outside weren’t worth attention.

Final take, if you don’t want to be disappointed like me when going to some conference, make sure to do a proper research on the speakers and topics. I really feel like I wasted entire weekend on something totally irrelevant. And keep defending Bitcoin, it the only network worth your attention.