Conferences for 2023
I spent most of this morning booking travel for most of the events I want to attend for the rest of the year. I’m always interested in more (especially events which are happening in places/times when I’m already in a place, or nearby). I book lots of stuff and go to about 50% of it (and add things as I go), but as I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of flying in business/first for coach prices, which requires booking early.
In general, I submit to speak at events; if I get accepted, I’m very likely (»95%) to attend; if not, then depends.
I’m in San Juan by default, but some of these are linked into longer multi-city trips (especially within Europe and within Asia) because flights to/from San Juan are more limited than from gateways like New York or Miami. I sometimes shoehorn in a few days extra in NYC or Miami or Montreal during longer trips since those are good gateway cities with plenty of things happening.
January:
SHOT Show in Las Vegas 17-20 Jan
(CES is the bigger one, but I didn’t attend that)
February:
ETH Denver is the main event — nominally from 24 February to 5 March, although I might not stay the whole time (might do some side trips during it to handle personal stuff or see clients)
March:
IETF and Real World Crypto and some associated events in Tokyo. Probably spending 25 March to 25 April in Asia, with side trips to Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand.
April:
ETH Tokyo 14-16 April
(Not going, but zkSummit 9 in Lisbon on 4 April looks amazing; zk8 was great last year.)
CoinDesk Consensus 2023 in Austin (26-28 April, will probably be there a bit before/after) , maybe some affiliated events. As I’ve said previously, Austin is one of my favorite cities.
May:
Financial Cryptography 2023 (in Split, Croatia) — FC was the second big event which got me into cryptography and computer security back in the late 1990s. (Digital Commerce Society of Boston, run by Robert Hettinga, was the first.)
Bitcoin Miami (18-20 May) which has lots of side events
ETH Istanbul (26-28 May)
(this is a pretty full month)
June:
REcon Montreal (Nominally 9-11 June but spending more time here because I can)
ACNS in Kyoto (19-22 June, which I’m only tangentially interested in, but have cheap tickets to Japan anyway, so might just do more Asia client stuff)
(Prague Defi Summit is 6-8 June, but I probably can’t attend.)
July:
EthCC in Paris (17-20 July)
(doing a stopover for 5 days in Iceland on the way back; renting a Model Y and seeing how difficult an EV is for visiting the Northwest Peninsula, etc.)
ZCon4 (30 July - 1 August) — a great event I almost missed due to not scheduling correctly.)
August:
Blackhat (5-10 August) and Defcon (10-13 August) in Las Vegas
CCC Camp in (15-19 August, near Berlin)
Stanford Blockchain Week (28-30 August, in Stanford — probably other events before/after but TBD)
(Austin also has USENIX Security, Crypto, Burning Man, and a few other events; it’s the most full month for events, and I had to triage heavily, and even with that am doing multiple transatlantic flights, thanks to mileage balances.)
(Still wondering when/where Defi Security will be; it might not be contiguous with SBC this year. It’s probably the most relevant event for me so I’d preempt other events for it.)
September:
Permissionless (11-13 September in Austin)
(probably some other events; primarily planning to be in Europe this month after Permissionless. Would potentially come back to Europe right after Stanford if there were events.)
(Korea Blockchain Week is 4-9 September, but very convenient. Possible, though — $1200 in coach to do SFO-ICN ICN-AUS…)
(Ethereum Devcon should be happening in September/October, probably Istanbul or Asia, but hasn’t been announced yet.)
(Token 2049 is 13-14 September in Singapore; basically you either go to Korea and Token 2049, or Permissionless, but not both.)
Messari Mainnet (20-22 September in New York; enjoyed it last year, might go again)
October:
Hackers Congress Paralelni Polis (probably 30 SEP - 1 OCT in Prague)
Probably some other events in early October in Europe (maybe Eth Devcon VII)
November:
Probably Websummit (13-16 November in Lisbon; I’ve never been to this, but it seems like it’s gotten better over the years.)
Istanbul in Turkey for Thanksgiving (i.e. Turkey in Turkiye) for personal travel
December:
Puerto Rico Blockchain Week (probably 3-9 December in San Juan; I try to spend as much of December and January in Puerto Rico as possible anyway)
CCC Congress (27-30 December in Berlin?)