Summary:
- Devcon is the Ethereum Foundation’s primary and biggest event of the year, bringing together the ecosystem’s builders to share perspectives and learnings in the form of talks, workshops, organized gatherings, and impromptu run-ins.
- ZKPs (Zero Knowledge Proofs), Staking Infrastructure (especially interesting post-merge), Account Abstraction, and Layer 2s were top of mind this year.
- In a slower market, building infrastructure means bettering the underlying blockchain technology to better support a wide diversity of use cases and improve user experience for all future users

After two years of delay, last week welcomed the sixth Devcon (Developer Conference), or Devcon VI, event in Bogota, Colombia from October 11-14. Devcon is the Ethereum Foundation’s primary and biggest event of the year, congregating the ecosystem’s builders every year to share perspectives and learnings in the form of talks, workshops, organized gatherings, and impromptu run-ins. Devcon’s origins began in Berlin in 2014 when the co-founders and earliest builders of Ethereum came together for a meet-up they named Devcon 0. Since then, Devcon has rotated the world: from Berlin to London, Shanghai, Cancún, Prague, and Osaka. Each location brings something unique topic to the developer conference, and this year was no different.
Devcon VI consisted of a few tracks of topics this year: Layer 1 Protocol, Layer 2s, Developer infrastructure, Governance & Coordination, UX & Design, Staking & Validator Experience, Security, ZKPs (Zero-Knowledge proofs), Opportunity and Global Impact, and Cryptoeconomics. Unsurprisingly, the focus of this event is technical and focused on infrastructure improvements. Given how many core builders in the Ethereum ecosystem are there to share their latest learning, Devcon is a great place to chat about and be around the frontier trends and latest infrastructure and technical achievements in the Ethereum ecosystem.
As always, Devcon opened up with a ceremony that incorporated local performers– and this year, the opening ceremony was dedicated to celebrate the Merge that finally transitioned Ethereum from a Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-State network. Thus kicked off a whole week of educational talks and workshops focused on celebrating and improving the future of Ethereum.
Though there are many tracks of topics, there were a few clear topics that emerged at Devcon VI that were top of mind for most builders on the ground: ZKPs (Zero Knowledge Proofs), Staking Infrastructure (especially interesting post-merge), Account Abstraction, and Layer 2s (among many others). At a high level, all of these are concepts on Ethereum infrastructure that have seen massive improvements in implementation in the past year or two.

Zero-Knowledge Protocols
A zero-knowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that something is true, without revealing any information apart from the fact that this specific statement is true. Zero-knowledge applications range from scalability to privacy to interoperability, as well as enabling use cases that traditional blockchains and virtual machines cannot, such as use cases around identity, authentication, verifiable computation, and more. Though still early days, ZKP is here and the potential application is massive and important in the years to come.
Layer-2 (Roll-ups)
As Ethereum has gained traction and popularity, the network has also seen congestion (slow speeds, high gas fees) during times of high usage. Layer 2 refers to a set of off-chain solutions (separate blockchains) built on top of layer 1s that reduce bottlenecks with scaling and data. As a result, blockchain networks become more scalable as computationally intensive processes move off the mainchain, which reduces congestion. Specifically, Rollups have become a popular Layer-2 scaling solution for blockchain networks, and the two major categories within roll-ups: Optimum and ZK, have seen solutions start to deploy on Mainnet within the last year. As more Roll-ups come to Mainnet, we will see a more scalable Ethereum L1. (Faster settlement, lower gas fees- win win!)
Account Abstraction
Layer 2s mean we can enjoy cheap and fast transactions on blockchains on a massive scale. Account abstraction takes that foundation to improve user experience (UX) and security for anyone transacting and interacting with blockchains. Most wallets on Ethereum today are what’s called “Externally Owned Accounts”, meaning that they rely on seed phrases with no ability to program any UX or security improvements. At a very high level, account abstraction allows users and developers to make authorizations programmable, enabling a greater diversity of wallet and protocol design. Other features that Account Abstraction can enable includes: being able to pay gas fees on Ethereum in other non-ether tokens, enabled more secure ways to recover a lost wallet seed phrase, and vastly improves upon how we interact with wallets on Ethereum today.
Next Steps and What to Read/Watch
After a week of Devcon, it’s impossible not to be excited about the future of Ethereum and how far infrastructure has come. In a slower market, building infrastructure means bettering the underlying blockchain technology to better support a wide diversity of use cases and improve user experience for all future users.
Links to Devcon VI talks/ workshops recordings below that expand upon the topics of ZKP, Account Abstraction, Roll-ups, and more!
- What to know about Zero Knowledge
- ELI5: Zero Knowledge
- zkEVM Vs EVM Full Compatibility
- A Better Mental Model for Rollups, Plasma, and Validating Bridges
- Major Trends in the Layer 2 Ecosystem: Where We Are and Likely Upcoming Themes
- ELI5 Account Abstraction
- Account Abstraction Panel
- Why Account Abstraction is a Game-Changer for Dapps
About the Author
Katherine Wu is an Advisor and Research Fellow at the Crypto Council. She is a Venture Partner at Archetype, a venture capital firm focused on leading early investments in crypto startups. Prior to Archetype, she was the Senior Lead on the Coinbase Ventures team, where she led and scaled investment initiatives. She is the host of the Cross-Chain Examination Podcast – offering 102-level content on crypto/web3.