The Revolution is Coming — No Entry Without a Ticket

Last week, we blockchain believers put the world to rights. At a glorious conference, EthCC, we decried the ‘walled garden’ of today’s tech and explained how we’d do it better. Ironically, this all happened inside a walled garden of our own construction.

I’m using the phrase in a more literal sense. Inside the conference venue in Cannes, France, a vision for a new world was being laid out by the best and the brightest. Outside, any members of the public or tourists who stopped to peek were told: “Private event, no entry.”

My disappointment at this doesn’t come from negativity toward those who were gathered inside—quite the opposite. The venue was full of geniuses, visionaries, and shapers of the future of finance and far more. What a waste to keep such a collection of human talent largely behind the velvet rope! I wanted to see them inspiring some of the “next billion users” as they inspired me.

It’s only fair to say: there may have been low-key outreach efforts I didn’t hear about—side events offsite, informal meetups. But the main event, Ethereum’s flagship event, was off-limits to outsiders. No posted public hour, no simple explanation like: “You can’t enter the main event, but come back at the end of the day for a town hall event.” I know, because I stopped on several occasions to watch as curiosity was quietly rebuffed. Nothing that signaled a welcome, even a conditional one.

Over two decades in journalism, I covered dozens, if not hundreds, of conferences. Many opened their doors to the public for at least a brief window—an act of outreach as much as celebration. Others ran parallel events to draw in curious onlookers and explain what the fuss was about.

EthCC is the embodiment of a movement that claims to be reshaping how humanity does everything—from finance to friendship. Yet this festival, where “permissionlessness” is a sacred value, turned out to be the most permissioned conference I’ve ever attended.

It felt like we built a cathedral of openness but forgot to install a doorbell.

Take, by contrast, some of the niche events I covered in my newsroom days: Cardiologists opened a public clinic. Renewable energy engineers let locals touch turbine blades. These events understood that demystifying the work is part of the work.

EthCC’s organizers deserve credit. The move from Paris to Cannes has raised ambition and attendance. Multiple stages, hundreds of speakers, a constellation of side events—the vibe was electric. The keynote by Vitalik Buterin, in particular, cut through the noise. His “walk-away test” summed up, in one line, what we spend hours trying to articulate: could users still rely on the system if the founding team vanished?

The technology on display was inspiring. As a stress test of blockchain’s ideals, it showed that many are still alive and well. There is vision, energy, and a burning desire to bring this tech to the general public—but we seem to forget that doing so might require warming up The Normies first.

By skipping even a two-hour open session, Ethereum missed a priceless opportunity to answer the simplest, most powerful question: “What is this, and why should I care?” You could almost hear the curiosity from the sidewalk: “What’s going on in there?” But no one answered.

The trust gap we built ourselves

For those who doubt that crypto has a communication problem, look beyond the banners and into the spreadsheets.

PwC’s Global Crypto Regulation Report 2025 found that even after the EU’s long-awaited MiCA rules, consumer understanding still trails far behind legal clarity. Distrust ranks among the top three barriers to adoption in more than 50 countries.

Markets have noticed. In July, J.P. Morgan halved its five-year stablecoin forecast to $500 billion, calling trillion-dollar projections unrealistic given the fragmented, minimal real-world usage today.

When the largest bank and the crypto press are sounding the same alarms, perhaps it’s time to swap out our jargon for doorways. At EthCC, as elsewhere, the jargon abides—just when clarity is needed most.

If we can’t explain ourselves during our own showcase week—then when?

More than just a missed adoption opportunity, closed doors risk undermining public legitimacy. For any system built on shared trust, that’s a risk we can’t afford.

To be clear, I write as someone who is also grappling with the challenges of crypto communication. For all of us deep in building—including at StarkWare, where I work—it’s not always easy to stay attuned to the “outside.” Getting this communication right is a work in progress for all of us. But we only get better by talking about it—in places like this one.

Opening the door—literally

Here’s a modest proposal, forged on those front steps: next year, EthCC should borrow a page from the world’s science fairs and run a half-day open expo. No ticket, no KYC, no wallet—just walk in.

Fill the foyer with demo booths from student clubs, NGOs trialing on-chain aid payouts, playwrights selling NFT scripts, cafes experimenting with crypto point-of-sale. Set up a “fix-your-MetaMask” bench and recruit multilingual volunteers for 10-minute lightning talks: “How a blockchain works (without the buzzwords).”

The cost? A sliver of floor space and a handful of lanyards. The upside? You replace the image of a security guard with the memory of a welcoming handshake. You plant a story in the mind of every tourist who stumbles in and walks out saying: “Actually, that crypto thing sounds kind of cool.”

The event already has part of the infrastructure in place for such a push. It has a very strong media team, run by YAP Global, which brings in dozens of journalists from across the media. Such professionals can create real buzz around such an outreach, and echo its success in what will be a snowball effect.

For a movement chasing mass adoption, there’s no marketing budget more effective than genuine curiosity met with genuine conversation.

We, the supporters and builders of Web3, cannot leave outreach to price charts and policymakers. The streets reminded me that blockchain still lives inside a glass box—visible, intriguing, but sealed off.

All it takes to change that picture is to prop open the door and invite the city inside. If Ethereum really is the people’s network, let the people through the gate—not for the whole thing; we need our time alone—but at least for long enough to glimpse the magic.

Next summer, when the conference lights flicker on, I hope the first word a passerby hears won’t be “Private.” I hope it will be “Welcome.”

Nathan Jeffay worked for 20 years in journalism and today directs media at StarkWare.

Source