ETHDenver: A Tale of Three Cities
Inspired by Jamie Wheal’s and David Hoffman’s reflections on Burning Man, with art by Midjourney.
With shoutouts to my brothers, Jarton Bones and Mario Vasilescu for their review, critique, candor, and contributions.
Attempts to describe what goes on at this annual gathering in Denver, Colorado range from the overtly earnest, “Ten Ways ETHDenver Changed My Life (and Will Save the World)” to the more judgmental and presumptuous, “ETHDenver is a Disconnected Crypto Carnival for Wealthy Elites”.
And while these headlines may be useful as clickbait, they really miss the point entirely.
That’s because there isn’t a singular event to speak of, either critically or adoringly. Instead, there’s an unfolding landscape of possibility; a suite of interconnected cityscapes that all get smashed together into competing conversations and good honest attempts at journalism. Tease them apart, and you might just get a glimpse of what’s truly unique about this cultural movement and annual pilgrimage.
The Popular Opolis
The first version of ETHDenver is the one that occupies popular imagination, caught somewhere between social media-fueled tales of SBF, Satoshi, Snoop, anons, DJs, degens, and the occasional tech titan. Without a doubt, this is the version experienced by the majority. It’s a projected city for folks who don’t go, but like to fancy themselves as being “in the know” as they gawk and nod from afar. They’ve watched the videos and scrolled the depths of crypto-Twitter. Like Ibiza, Burning Man, or Studio 54, it’s important (so they think) to be familiar with “the scene” but will never commit to it. Be it work, fear, family, skeptical spouses, wholesome reputations — they doubt their ability to take a taste of the forbidden fruit and not binge on its excesses. This is the Popular City of ETHDenver; the digital mirage most familiar to the masses.
The Physical Opolis
The second version of ETHDenver is the physical place and #BUIDLathon town square. This is the literal city and space that only reveals itself if you commit. Clear the calendar, pack your bags, stake your $SPORK, and beg for forgiveness in advance. Make your way into the River North (RiNo) district of the Mile High City and marvel at the myriad crypto billboards, scattered in between a hyperkinetic landscape of human suffering and undeniable creativity. Take a selfie (or sing a ballad) with a Bufficorn as a first-timer. Get persuaded, against your better judgment, by a local budtender. Lean into the blossoming reality of urban sprawl and stunning street art as you pray for dry weather.
An urban refugee camp from 21st Century normalcy. Everyone ambling around in their favorite neon non-fungible jacket and platform boots. The loucheness of it all feels frivolous if not scandalous, and it’s still only 10 in the morning.
But then, after a day of lying low and trying to orient yourself to a city overcome by mortal madness and immortal memes, the sun begins to set. The light in the sky shifts from washed out blue to tangerines, pinks and hues of hope. The peaks to the west glow like mountains on Mars. The mood slowly changes to one of divided focus and personal preparation. As the air cools, strange creatures come out from hacker house hideouts. Fishnets and feathers. Hot pants and sequins. Furs and thigh-highs. Apes. Punks. Summoners and conjurers.
Night falls and a procession to the Denver underworld begins.
Walking is much too slow, so you hop on a scooter for some wind in your hair as you experience the gravitational pull of surrounding sounds and lights. Towards the distributed after-hour scene of parties, crypto coves, and big Denver beats. After the hot, cramped bedlam of the city and SporkCastle (National Western Complex), you suddenly burst into a cool and loosely coordinated urban underground. The aimless wander is both freeing and overwhelming as a new city glides by, infected by a global phenomenon that everyone seems to feel but nobody can point to.
Back in 1966, John Lennon met Yoko Ono for the first time at a gallery in London. There was a rickety ladder that led up to a black canvas mounted near the ceiling, with a little spyglass attached to a chain. Lennon, not knowing what to expect, climbed the ladder, looked through the spyglass, and saw in Ono’s tiny, meticulous lettering the word “Yes!” That was the very moment, he later admitted, that he fell head over heels in love.
The art and culture of ETHDenver can do that too…if you’re willing to let go. Like Lennon, it forces you up ladders and out onto dangerous limbs and ledges. It disturbs and disrupts and delights. It knocks you off balance. It sends you head over heels. It wraps you up with “Yes!” again and again.
At some point over the course of nearly a month, all of this deranged creativity unmoors you. The music, the dreams, the memes, the misfits, the mutants, the kindness (and strangeness) of complete strangers. You fall through every preconception, through every layer of culture and conditioning, into a space and time between worlds.
Landing in a liminal crypto corner between everywhen and neverwas. This is precisely where the Physical City of ETHDenver ends, and the mystical begins.
The Mystical Opolis
And that my friends, is where the third and most elusive instantiation of ETHDenver shows up. It’s when you’re too worn down or cracked open to steer anymore. It doesn’t appear on any schedule (but I can tell you from experience that around midnight and/or sunrise are good times to go looking). It’s the experience that makes all the hassle and heartache worthwhile. It puts a shine in the eyes of those who have had a glimpse, and a glaze over the eyes of those who haven’t.
As Zora Neale Hurston once said, “You’ve got to go there, to know there.”
It’s a modern day rite of Eleusis. The secret within the secret. The closest we can get to the mystical and mysterious in a modern world all but robbed of it. Because this third city, the one that redeems all of the excesses and shortcomings of the whole ridiculous scene, is less an idea or a location than it is a genesis — call it hyperstition; a collective manifestation of the adjacent possible.
In a world where we get too embroiled in, and inevitably disenchanted by, the popular version of all things, and where the physical seems to be consumed by it, it is precious to discover that there’s still magic and mystery to be found. That’s where the soul of ETHDenver lives. A third place that is a premeditated initiation into remembering who we are. Remembering where we’re from. Remembering what we’re here to do. It’s what the Greeks called Anamnesis — “the forgetting of the forgetting.”
If that sounds like a bit too much, just remember that generational wisdom comes at a cost. It’s not any easier out there, in that biblical Bufficorn dreamscape, than it is in our quiet, desperate lives at home. In fact, it’s a good bit harder. And often much faster too. It isn’t obvious, but it’s a space where the event horizon approaches zero. Cause-and-effect collapse together. Think it and it is so. Resist and it becomes Resistance. But surrender, and it has the undeniable capacity to float you home.
That is what this third city offers. A chance to experience the tragic and the magic of the human condition in real time. Grace, to be sure, but a fierce grace that, as T.S. Eliot once said, is a condition of complete simplicity that costs nothing less than everything. This is the Mystical City of ETHDenver, a festival reborn.
Just because no one can ever quite explain to you what this “crypto movement” really means, doesn’t mean you can’t find out for yourself.
So I recommend you go looking, around midnight, or as the sun comes up. All alone, or with a friend. But be sure to look beyond the first and second cityscapes — all surfaces and sensations, places and people — and into the third realm. The one that isn’t confined by a date on a calendar or defined by a pin on a map. The true one. The one we all, deep down, remember.
See you in the city, February 2024!
