Good morning!
After a few days of boots-on-the-ground info gathering at Summit, I am both mentally and physically exhausted. I’m writing this on the train back home to try and get it out on time. It will be late and maybe poor quality. Sorry!
Let’s talk Summit.
Wrath Tank
The star of Summit week was undoubtedly our lovable scamp, Wrath. He has left the anon life behind in a major way, and given us enough meme fuel to get all the way to next year’s event.
The memes came early and often, with the crown jewel of course being his participation in a KOL cult initiation ceremony:
It’s always been a little frustrating to see who the “AVAX cult” is at these events (I only recognize 3 people in this photo) but it was nice to see one of our own included this time.
I read some posts complaining about the people who get invited to things like the influencer dinners and backstage rooms, etc etc. I sympathize with these!
Of course I would have liked to meet Mr. Wonderful too, and part of me is salty that these KOLs get the VIP treatment. If you’re reading this and in that group I’m probably not talking about you though! Shoutout Swanny/Ashley/Vanho for always being friendly and making an effort to mix it up with the community.
I get it, it’s all an attention game. In the end I can’t fault them for bringing in these people to gain exposure. It’s a hard thing to measure, so I won’t pretend to know if it’s worth it.
I think if we are going to try and get more community members to these events in the future, a good first step would be making the average Joe’s of AVAX feel more special. More on that later!
Either way, it was cool to see Wrath included amongst the VIPs this time around, and he most certainly delivered on the content front.
This week we are all Grotto residents.
Business!
Summit was in fact as business-oriented as advertised! I was in jeans and a t-shirt most of the time and was almost certainly under-dressed.
After talking with people there, it seems that this is how all crypto conferences are these days—it’s not just an AVAX thing. As we’ve said in this space before, the industry as a whole is growing up, and that means more suits.
This is a double edged sword of course, as it probably pushed many of you readers away from attending. After a quick look at the speaking sessions and the audience, it was clear that us C-Chain ponzi enthusiasts would be taking a back seat this time around.
There was a panel with prominent builders from the community that was my highlight of the conference itself, and the Grotto x Team1 party was the best part of my week. My wife, Kieks, came up just for that party!
I don’t want this to be a negative section though. While it’s not what I personally look for in an event, there are of course many positives to the business focus.
I’ve seen tons of tweets about how “high-signal” of an event this was, and I don’t doubt it.
At the end of the day it’s tough to run a heavy business event and get the community excited about it, so I understood why many of my friends from last year’s Summit didn’t feel like coming to this one.
This was perhaps most evidenced by my brief time watching Luigi eat hot wings on stage.
I was late to this particular session (thank you Voh for getting me to come watch for content), and when I walked in there was another woman who sat down right next to me.
She was surprised to see what was happening on stage, and asked “What are they doing, eating hot wings??”
I explained that yes, it’s an interview over wings, modeled after a popular YouTube series.
She quickly stood up, said “Oh. This is not what I’m here for” and left.
This is why we can’t have nice things! She is emblematic of why it’s so hard to please the community and also court businesses at the same time.
She lost in the end though because she missed Luigi at his best. The spice was clearly getting to his head because when asked what his favorite thing about AAVE was, he responded “I love that it makes money.”
More hot wings interviews next Summit please! Don’t let that woman win!
I think in the future it might be cool to have completely separate events with different focuses (community summit in March, business summit in September?). I got to speak with some people about this, and it seems possible. We are contracted by AVAX now! We can help make these things happen!
The People
For me, Summit has been and always will be about the people. As I said earlier, I was sad to have fewer friends there this year than last year.
That being said, it was still a great time meeting with the people that did make the trip. There’s something really special about grabbing a beer with people you interact with every day.
In a sea of nameless suits, it was a joy to look down at someone’s name tag and have it be recognizable. I got to talk at length with new friends, old friends, and even people that I’ve been critical of in the past.
I might sometimes go after people here and on the timeline, but meeting up in person is a reminder that we’re all on the same team.
Overall, even though there were fewer community members at this event, it was great to see those of you that showed up.
We got to do some good business as well! Shoutout Matias, Nahas, and Chimba for all the great conversations. Looking forward to the future, fellow coworkers!
I guess that’s it for my Summit recap! Overall I had a great time, and despite my initial hesitancy I’m glad I came. Oh I forgot to mention the food was amazing too—brisket on the first day, tacos and gyros on the second day. Nice work, events team!
Ferdy Ponz
Ponz game was also a fun storyline to monitor throughout the event, with people checking their Ponz every hour. Congrats to the winner, Chart Shaman, who took home almost 2000 AVAX! That’s a validator right there!
It was a wild ride, with 4 last minute surrenders leading to Shaman being crowned champion.
Overall there were much fewer surrenders than expected, with the math heads really going hard on optimizing their play (never surrender). The people are BEGGING for ponzis to hold to zero, and this was a nice start to experimentation szn.
The timing with Summit was perfect, and gave us a little storyline whether or not you made it to the event.
I took a strong “Schrödinger’s Ponz” approach, trying to check as little as possible so that in my head I was still in the game. I was devastated to wake up this morning to a message from professional buzzkill, Tactical Retreat, letting me know that all my ponz were dead.
It was not a completely ruined morning though, as I also woke up to this message from my dad:
So overall I am leaving Summit hopeful for our future!
We’re excited to have a chance to make a difference with Frens DAO, and this event just added to that excitement.
It’s hard not to be positive after talking with so many cool people that all want AVAX to succeed.
Even though it might not always feel this way, we really are more aligned than it seems.
Tweet of the Week
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Banger as always