As the world continues to prepare for a global pandemic, many sought after conferences and meetups have been forced to postpone or cancel their events.
Earlier today, perhaps the most well-respected DeFi summit – Ethereal – releases a press statement that they will be taking their New York event online.
🗞️ Ethereal New York 2020 will now be Ethereal Virtual Summit 2020.
🗞️ All #EtherealNY ticket holders will receive a refund & we thank you for your support. 💕
🗞️ We are excited to work on this new project.
🗞️ Read our full statement here https://t.co/Z5HwXWhgoB pic.twitter.com/E3zX4Jd8T6
— Ethereal (@EtherealSummit) March 13, 2020
All of those who had already purchased tickets will be issued a full refund within 45 days, while the in-person event is being postponed to sometime in Fall of 2020.
“Ethereal Virtual Summit 2020 will provide an open and more accessible experience across multiple days and time zones. As of today, nearly all of our confirmed 80+ speakers have committed to join us for the Ethereal Virtual Summit. You can expect to hear from these industry leaders in familiar formats such as keynotes, fireside chats, and panels, but with even more engagement via virtual roundtable discussions and VR meetups. This will be a first for us, but we’re excited to deliver a digital experience that is more available to our global community. “
The event lineup consisted of some of the strongest DeFi projects to date, including top representatives from projects like Aave, Argent, Compound, Nexus Mutual, PoolTogether, Set Protocol, Synthetix, and Uniswap – just to name a few.
While it’s likely that virtually all of these speakers will proceed with their presentations online, this news comes with a bitter taste for those eager to enjoy one of the most strongly curated events of the year.
What to Expect
This news comes in parallel with the suspension of ETHGlobal’s ETHNYC – a premier Ethereum hackathon that was set to take place the week after Ethereal Summit this May.
In light of COVID-19 developments both in the US and worldwide, we have decided to postpone the @ETHNewYork hackathon.
The welfare of our attendees – and the general welfare of the cities that host our hackathons – is our most important consideration.
— ETHGlobal (@ETHGlobal) March 12, 2020
For those who have attended virtual conferences, we can expect a similar format in which the organizers will create a dedicated server for viewing all talks and panels. Users will likely interact with speakers through a chat box, while timeslots and schedules for the presentations will be posted in advance.
Perhaps the only silver lining with this news is that all talks *should* be more accessible as it’s easier to bounce from one discussion to another.
In the meantime, we recommend keeping up with all things Ethereal through their official Twitter.
We’ll keep a close eye out for the rescheduled in-person conference in the coming months!
Cooper is the Editor of DeFi Rate and an active contributor to leading DeFi media outlets like The Defiant, DeFi Pulse, and Bankless. He works with early-stage teams through Fire Eyes DAO to incubate governance models and grassroots community development. He is an ambassador to Set Protocol and an author of a weekly publication called Token Tuesdays. To stay up with Cooper, follow him on Twitter.