Deepesh

nothing threatens the X algorithm more than a woman posting a selfie so anyway hi

Plenty of opinions about IBW out there. Thought it’s worth sharing my perspective. There are two types of comments floating around. Some about the Indian crypto ecosystem, others about IBW or IBW Conference specifically. I will address the IBW-related ones here. Not denying that some points are constructive and will help us improve next year. Thanks for the feedback. (Disclaimer: personal views only and not that of the company) First, something to clarify: IBW ≠ IBW Conference IBW is India Blockchain Week where HashedEM hosts IBW Conference among 90 plus side events by the community. Anyone can host an event. We all share the same goal which is to grow India’s crypto ecosystem. Here are the 5 main concerns I have seen: 1. Timing conflicts with global events Agreed. Our original 3-4 Dec dates overlapped with Binance Blockchain Week, and we could only shift by a day due to venue availability. With Devcon a week before, BinanceBW partial overlap, Breakpoint a week after, bringing top speakers was naturally harder. ETHGlobal in late September also made an October move impossible. Despite the overlap, IBW still secured strong speakers & sponsors. 2. "Not a developer focused conference" IBW has always been designed as a broader ecosystem conference, with ETHIndia already handling the developer focus extremely well in the same week. IBW is a gateway for the global crypto community to engage with India and vice versa. A conference’s job is to create surface area for new connections, opportunities and ideas. If events like IBW did not exist, many global leaders & teams would not time their India trips. That said, builders remain a core pillar: – IBW Demo Day 2025 was our biggest ever with 10 serious startups pitching on mainstage. A total of $530k in investment and $10k in grants were awarded. – 30% discount on tickets for devs to IBW Conference. – Outside of the conference, Cardano x IBW hackathon had ~400 IRL devs with $65k in bounties. Aptos also ran their hackathon. 3. Merch related concerns Two points. a. Sponsors give merch because it works globally. It has high ROI, drives booth visits, conversions, brand recall and community belonging. If merch did not work, companies would have stopped it long ago. b. This is not an India problem. People hoard merch at Token2049, Devcon, ETHDenver, everywhere. Our students may be a little more enthusiastic and that is fine. We are a more aspirational audience in a developing country and many of us grew up treating a single event T-shirt like a prized item. Students mature with time; the behaviour normalises. 4. "Too many students or newbies" As a conference, our main mission for IBW is to grow the crypto community in India. Mass adoption needs newcomers. 26% of IBW 2025 Conference attendees were new to crypto. That is a success metric and not a failure. Students are the easiest group to onboard into web3 because they become tomorrow’s developers, founders and designers. 5. "Too many creators" This is a new meta globally. Creators bring distribution and onboard non-crypto users at scale. Even if someone does not fully grasp what onchain means yet, creating content eventually forces learning. It is worth waiting to see how this evolves. Early indicators are net positive. ==== Now, some positives often overlooked: – IBW has consistently brought major global leaders to India in person. These visits help them see the Indian market up close and often strengthen their conviction to hire locally and invest more. Avery from Aptos has attended for two years and Aptos has only gotten more bullish each time. Other names include Sreeram (Eigen), Keone (Monad), Sandeep (Polygon), Rene (Celo), Imran (Alliance), Charles (Ledger), Sebastien (Sandbox), Mark (Aethir), Rik (Trust Wallet), Yusuf (Animoca), John (Coinbase) and more. – Our sponsor list includes major ecosystems engaging with builders such as Aptos, Avalanche, Polygon, Supra, Starknet, Starkware, Polkadot, ICP, Berachain, NEAR, Sui, Oasys, Manta, Base, Cardano, XDC and more. This concentration of ecosystems creates a growth loop where builders discover more opportunities and momentum compounds year after year. – Mainstream media presence was the strongest ever this year, which is crucial for awareness. Included names such as The Hindu, TOI, Business Standard, Deccan Herald, Entrepreneur India, Moneycontrol, Reuters, Yourstory, VC Circle, TechCrunch, Inc42 and Bloomberg News. – IBW was in active dialogue with Karnataka Govt’s IT Minister Priyank Kharge to attend as keynote, cancelled last minute due to schedule change. These bridges matter. – NPCI, the creator of UPI, sponsored and set up a booth this year which is a huge symbolic step. – Side events grew from ~50 historically to 90-100 consistently each year since IBW Conference launched. – Many people entered crypto because of IBW. For many Indians who cannot fly to SG or Dubai or the US, IBW is their first global scale event. ==== Some of the usual events during the week were not happening this year, or not at their usual scale, like ETHIndia, Unfold, FILBangalore and Polygon Connect. Even then, IBW with the support of the Indian crypto community managed to draw the crowd and still have a healthy number of side events. IBW Conference is only 3 years old. It is still early and has a long way to go. Public discourse is important, but so is seeing the full picture. Many people only see the concerns raised and miss the context. That is why I felt it was worth sharing this perspective. IBW remains committed to improving and serving the Indian crypto community better each year. Onwards.