Santiago Alto

🇫🇷 Come find us around @EthCC

@collinmathilde Wow. I feel it as an achievement for the whole S14 batch :) Congrats!

Life update: I’ll be a visiting partner at Y Combinator for the next batch. Over 21,000 companies have already applied, it’s mind-blowing to see how fast companies can be built today 🤯

One month, only 30 days, left in Bordel crowdloaning campaign to fund a DeFi mortgage for our new community space! loan.bordel.wtf We are building a space for independent creation, chaotic education and sustaining cypherpunk values. What is it and how does it work?!👇

Conferences aren’t a vanity play. They’re how newcomers become builders. My path into the Ethereum ecosystem started in 2016, via: 1. attending a meetup on Oranienstraße in Berlin (which made me start meetups in Prague) 2. competing in a hackETHon in London (which made me learn Solidity) 3. flying to Shanghai for @Devcon 2 (which made me come to every single Devcon since) Meeting the community in person meant 1000x more than all the online interactions combined. That’s what made me stick to Ethereum. Events still matter for talent inflow and retention. They also expose what we do to people standing on the sidelines. They’re not just marketing gimmicks - events are the core glue!! If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been around long enough that conferences no longer feel like an entry point; they feel like work and a lineup of meetings. Fair. But remember how you got here: what were the first events for you? If we start acting like IRL events aren’t important, we’ll close these channels. That’s it. We’ll silo ourselves in a self-swallowing bubble. Game over. Real-life events need your support. If you’re a marketer, running a company or you are a whale in this space, sponsoring an industry/community event is in your best interest - that's how you help the industry grow. Also please don’t drain organizers dry while doing it. Events cost money: venue, catering, Wi-Fi boosts, production. The nicer you want it, the more it costs, and more often than not the hosts are volunteering to make them happen. Yes, I understand it’s hard to measure exact impact of an IRL experience. But that’s how you make yourself real: brand awareness, association, a gateway drug. The point is the optionality you create by letting someone new in. You won’t measure it cleanly, and you don’t need to - the occasional “winning case” is what drives outsized impact and multiplied growth. That's how you find your next star, get meaningful product feedback face to face or make a deal 2 years from now. Don't expect your user base to grow magically because you showed people a laptop at your booth and threw a party - by fostering events and brining value to them, you are boosting the shared signal - if all of the remaining parts of your product or tech make sense, you can leverage that signal for your own grow. I’m genuinely sad to see @ethereumfndn not supporting events with grants anymore. I get the focus on meetups and local hubs - they matter too - but seasonal events are beacons that make local substrates flourish: side-event rentals for local hubs, media interest, new visitors, new hackerspace members. Those second-order effects are real. Likely brining more value than the $1k thrown at a meetup occasionally. And I’m sad to see companies trying to reap the benefits without contributing to the core: - Posting only a hacker bounty without sponsoring the hackathon - what? - Spending 20k on a side event without sponsoring the core event - seriously, WTF?! I joined the Ethereum Foundation largely thanks to Devcon 4. When I left EF, my goal was to go out and grow the garden @AyaMiyagotchi often talks about. A few weeks ago we made this happen with @EthereumZurich - now a group of students is taking over the conference is nurturing the local community. @ETHPrague has grown into a significant annual event with global reach, with some of the most unprecedented conversations happening in this small town in the middle of nowhere. Initiatives and teams have sparked from ETHPrague with ambitions to change how Europe and the world is viewing Ethereum (can't wait for this to be announced!). IRL still matters.

Podpořte na @doniocz vznik knihy #MatematikaBitcoinu - Matematické principy bitcoinové revoluce a získejte tak do Vánoc beta verzi manuscriptu ve formátu pdf. V roce 2026 jsou v plánu rozsáhlé korektury, aby příští rok vyšla finální verze. Více na donio.cz/matematika-bit… dík

We bumped up the fixed rate for the first ever DeFi mortgage to 2,5% APR! Too little you say? Consider this - if you lend $10k you lose something like 1% p.a. vs variable rate - meaning ±$100/y BUT you get supporter perks! This means that for only $500 you get: - 1 venue rental for an event in Prague - 2y of server racking - 2y hacker-space membership - T-shirt & ZKBadge that will get you to parties (IYKYK) - Ticket to ETHPrague'26 aaaand that's hell of a bargain!! + you make history happen! Link below:

I was worried about the complexity/scope/size/.. of @EFDevcon Argentina 🇦🇷 But the team & community made it work and even did excel. Special big up to @nethan_eth for staying calm, fun and positive - even when presented with challenges where others would simply collapse. 1/16

Introducing: Decentralized crowdloaning and an experiment to bootstrap our new community space Theory: @bordel/decentralized-crowdloaning" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">paragraph.com/@bordel/decent… Implementation: loan.bordel.wtf We are bringing a real, community based, cooperative way to bootstrap projects on Ethereum without any token or speculation. Our goal is to demonstrate a simple way to coordinate and utilize liquidity from the global community to empower local. Our hackerspace in Prague has been looking for a new home for almost 2 years and it's not easy to find it. Now, you can help us to reach our goal, get us started and eventually visit us in person! We do not ask for donations but direct loans that we pay back continuously as mortgage. If you have any stables lying around, you can lock them to this loan instead of another protocol and support real world project. This is a nonprofit effort to showcase defipunk and utilize the open nature of our ecosystem. Crowdloaning is a trustless alternative to more traditional crowdfunding alternatives for us, crypto natives. We don't have any credit in traditional banks, we only use FLOSS and we source loans from community of individuals, not pools. Help us get started and hopefully, we will see each other at the opening party during @EthPrague!

Still processing last week… It has been very emotional to see the recognition of the hard work we put into @EFDevcon this year 🥹 it became the largest event @ethereumfndn organized, with 14k+ participants from 130+ countries, 10k+ locals, 60% first-timers… Thank. You. All.

cheers to the best Devconnect yet! @EFDevcon team assemble!!! @nethan_eth @tomosaito @iamnicki15 @carlota_vv @pblvrt @Scott1UP_ @OrnellaWeb3 @Winnie_2538 @ERasowsky @kvbik @mr_ligi @lassejaco @agustinarendal @candufaz @DidierKrux @heather_claire @JuanaOrlandini @MadridMaloL

Most spotted costume at @raave today in Buenos Aires was the 2022 Bogota @EFDevcon swag t-shirt :))) Thank you for an amazing party in a very beautiful venue!

in case you got a dozens of "Last Call for Devconnect — Claim your ticket discount" emails… apologies. we're still investigating. blaming bezos' shitty centralized cloud services in the meantime but you got it claim your @EFDevcon ticket claim your @EFDevcon ticket claim(…)

i love buenos aires and i keep coming back. my tips: 1. data eSIM, either get a global (yearly Three HongKong is best - $50) or a local one for $5 (requires passport). the travel ones cost nearly as much as global ones. 2. unless you're american and you're already used to zero fiber in your diet, actively seek to add fiber to your diet. it's very carbs and meat-heavy here. 3. do not pay with card. fx and fees will screw you 5-10% and merchants will hate you. 4. do not worry about cash either. the cash stories on CT are overblown. all you need is @joinpeanut and you can pay anywhere simply by asking for QR payment, in many places you get 10-15% discount 5. stay in palermo or recoleta. 6. the city bike system is really good so you don't need to uber everywhere. subte (local railway) is reliable and very cheap. you can pay with @joinpeanut too 7. it's a late-night culture. dinner at 9pm is normal 8. will post a restaurant and cafe guide next.

🤔 From judging hackathons, it’s clear there’s still huge value: builders show up, meet, ship, and create. ⚠️ The problem is that teams are optimizing for prizes, so developers end up jamming in the top three sponsors instead of pushing Ethereum forward. 🙇‍♂️ What if we tried a different model? 👀 Something like long-running (somehow not sponsored?) hackathons where you might start with quick experiments, but the expectation is to put something onchain and get real users? 🎤 Allow for idea-guy pitch sessions 👬 Speed dating team formations or small trial builds 🤓 Helpful industry mentors that give feedback and teach you how to get serious about an idea 🥸 I guess this is basically like existing hackathons without the sponsors and longer running... which would be hard and expensive...

Thanks for this article @sheena_oconnell sheenaoc.com/articles/2025-… - sending couple bucks to support @pyconafrica za.pycon.org/donations - and we won't stop kicking!

I’m grateful to carry the @Ethereum 10th-anniversary torch and even more excited that it’s passing through Argentina the host of the first-ever Ethereum World Fair in 2025 @efdevcon 🇦🇷 A few years ago, I came across a @mujeresncrypto post on X. I didn’t understand what Ethereum was about but I saw a group of talented women and felt inspired to learn more. I volunteered as a CM and just a few weeks later I was helping lead that community working with people I admire That first step opened up everything. A few months later, I was building my own project with incredible Latam talent focused on education, community-building, and experimenting with governance, nodes, and new forms of decentralized coordination. and through it all community and education remained at the core At the time, I was simply trying to grow professionally, from the south of the world where access to opportunities and financial stability often feels out of reach. But Ethereum gave me something much greater: purpose, friendships, and a path I never expected. Then came the conferences, the connections, and the moment I realized how powerful this space really is. There’s a phrase that gets said often “I came for the tech, stayed for the community” and that couldn’t be more true for me > I can confirm, when you give you receive. Ethereum has given me so much, and now I just want to give back. This year especially feels like a celebration. Being part of the team organizing  the ethereum’s biggest conference, in my home country is both surreal and meaningful Happy anniversary to my ethfrens who’s been part of this journey and to those just getting started 💜

@Mipiul @MultiTricker Ahoj a tesi me! Vede to tam muj tatik. Mame par 3d tiskaren, laser, malou frezku a hromadu stavebnic, arduin a microbitu. Nejvetsi zajem je o pareni her a hned v zavesu o tisteni vselijakych blbinek. Ale sem tam nekdo si uspini ruce i s pajeckou! Zive obrazy opravdu chybi!!

@MultiTricker @kvbik Tak to v tom případě zdravím @kvbik 🙂, docela mě to zaujalo, takhle v bývalém obchodě. A je o to bastlení mezi mládeží zájem? Ale @MultiTricker měl by jsi zasáhnout, fakt jim tam nevisí ani jedinej živý obraz... V bastl dílně 🤦🤓

Takhle teď vypadá most v Roudnici nad Labem. Rekonstrukce postupuje hezky.

@wslyvh @PrivacyScaling @ethereum Excited for you and the team. And for the great outcomes :)))

PSA: I'm excited to announce that I joined @PrivacyScaling ✨ With a new mandate to improve privacy on @ethereum, my focus will be on developer experience and supporting devs to build, integrate and ship privacy projects If you're building privacy on Ethereum, say hi! Would love to connect It's time for a cypherpunk renaissance

@MultiTricker @bartkovskym @oliver_adamek @MartinBrys Kromě výše uvedených celebrit tu máme i coworking @cwrkjzd a 3d dílničku, historické kino, ... A tak vůbec vás tu všechny rádi uvidíme!

Oko za oko, samolepku za samolepku 😁 (dole na stole jsou vidět onlybirds.cz). Díky za krásný podvečer @bartkovskym @oliver_adamek @MartinBrys. A někdy příště třeba v Roudnici - Babiš tu má politickou kancelář, naproti přes náměstí měl svoje místo Petr Pavel a přes Kubu Netíka můžete něco vzkázat bohu nebo se nechat odčervit. A to se vyplatí!

@brucexu_eth @NathanSexer it is fixed now.

cc @NathanSexer

Not sure who is maintaining speak.devcon.org, but seems the website is down, cannot open the page speak.devcon.org/devcon7-sea/ta… HTTP 500.