Bullish Event draws crowd to NYC amid crypto bear market

• Crypto enthusiasts, Web3 founders and investors met at Messari Mainnet in New York City this week.
• The tone was firmly bullish, despite bitcoin, ether and other digital assets struggling through a bear market.
• Here’s a look at the event from Insider’s Phil Rosen.

The Messari Mainnet crypto conference in New York drew around 2,000 in-person attendees this week, with bullishness still high and conference attendees ready to party — even as bitcoin and ether, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, are down more than 60 each. % this year.

“Enthusiasm is definitely back to where we were before the bear market,” Shahzad Nathani, head of partnerships at blockchain firm Shardeum, told Insider at Pier 36, the eastern Manhattan venue for the conference.

The NFT market, like crypto, has cratered in 2022. In the week leading up to the Mainnet, market valuations for two of the most popular gatherings, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cryptopunks, fell by 21% and 19% respectively.

A ticket to the three-day Mainnet conference cost $2,100, and gives access to three days of panels with nearly 300 speakers, ranging from ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin to smaller asset managers and executives in the room.

“There’s a lot of excitement,” Nathani said. “People are focused on how to build for the future, so we’re not falling into the trap of just being a speculative space. I think we’re ready for the next leap in the next six months to a year.”

“The bear market only means more construction”

Nathani, like a dozen other attendees I spoke to this week, is shrugging off the crypto winter and increasingly optimistic about what’s next.

Some pointed to promising venture capital funding – how angel investors are still willing to put money into promising startups. Others highlighted new partnerships that materialized this week during late nights, rooftop shindigs or over handshakes and coffee.

“The bear market just means more construction,” Brandon Rochon, lead data scientist at Covalent told Insider.

Echoing that, Brandon Neal, COO of Euler Labs, explained that Mainnet is feeling optimistic because the industry continues to mature. Those who have been in the crypto space long enough, he said, understand that the next wave of crypto adoption is still coming, whether the economy is choppy or not.

Lisa Fridman, president of metaverse company Quadrata, said a shaky market actually opens the door for founders, because investors have a clearer picture of winners and losers in the space.

“In a more challenging environment, it’s easier to identify stronger, more attractive opportunities, because in a stronger market, there’s just a lot of hype and capital around so many projects,” Fridman told Insider.

“We’ve had a lot of deep conversations about where the space is going, how to improve products, how to increase adoption and how to retain new users in the next cycle,” added Rochon. “There is less noise to sift through and everyone is focused on building better products.”

After parties, rooftop parties, yacht parties

As with events in any industry, Mainnet had its share of festivities once the day’s discussions were over.

Tuesday through Thursday I attended 10 Mainnet sponsored events and satellite events. Most of the people I spoke to at these receptions were still positive about crypto, even as they struggled through the bear market, but they were also keen to point out the importance of the community events that the Mainnet emphasizes.

At a cocktail event on the 76th floor of the World Trade Center, a blockchain employee told me she expected the sense of community around the conference to remind people why they got involved in the digital resource space in the first place.

On every rooftop I landed during the week, I had similar conversations with conference goers.

I spoke with founders in the crypto and Web3 space who promised to deliver projects with tight communities and practical utility. Others told me about new games to earn video games based on blockchain technology, while others were keen on “phygitals”, a new mix between physical and digital spaces or products. The importance and excitement for new projects was high, and apparently not deterred by this year’s tough market.

On Thursday night, a yacht party required $1,000 per person to attend (a separate cost from the $2,100 ticket to Mainnet). The boat took patrons out for four hours of festivities on the East River.

While it was certainly a blast, more than one attendee noted the disconnect in tone between such lavish events and the reality of a crypto market that has fallen from a total value of $2.8 trillion last November to less than $1 trillion this year the week.

Philip Shoemaker, founder of Identity, a nonprofit focused on identification services, admitted the bubble has burst this year, but said it could create momentum.

“This is when this community comes together in unique and supportive ways,” he said. “We’ve been through this type of market before, and we’ll continue to grow together.”