Local Ethereum #2

February 2025 Roundup 🌍

The story of Ethereum is a story of geography. Ethereum is a global network and a global movement. It is local nodes spread around the world that give rise to the phenomenon that is Ethereum. As such Ethereum is deeply rooted in geography.

From local ETH communities and meetups to universities, from developers to startups, from policy to user adoption and more, Local Ethereum is a newsletter to cover the geo-story of Ethereum. Let’s start!

Artist: Liam Cobb(opens in a new tab)

Asia 🌊

India

• Blockchain Society at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee has organized a great Ethereum Hackathon - STACK TOO DEEP V 2.0(opens in a new tab) in Feb. Check out their team members(opens in a new tab) if you are hiring. Many of them have landed an internship/ job in the Ethereum ecosystem.
• International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH)
  • Just organized a 5-Day National Workshop on Ethereum(opens in a new tab) (1st - 5th March, 2025);
  • Prof. Anikit is teaching an Ethereum and Web3 Development course at IIITH(opens in a new tab). If you are interested in Ethereum, please join.

Malaysia

• Etherscan, a Malaysia-based blockchain explorer, has an excellent Ethereum weekly newsletter(opens in a new tab)!
• ETHKL(opens in a new tab) is actively organizing monthly meetups.

Mainland China

• Check out zkpunk(opens in a new tab)'s recent CN translation of "Crypto Wars(opens in a new tab)" if you're into cryptography. The book "Crypto Wars: The Fight for Privacy in the Digital Age: A Political History of Digital Encryption" by Cris Jarvis explores the history of digital encryption.

Taiwan

• If you still haven't booked your tickets to the ETHTaipei conference (1st-2nd April, 2025) and ETHGlobal Hackathon (4th-6th April, 2025), it's time! The ETHTaipei conference(opens in a new tab) this year covers Ethereum's upcoming upgrade and DeFi.
• COSCUP(opens in a new tab), one of the best open source events in Asia, has opened its early bird Call for Proposals(opens in a new tab) for those interested in open source, free software and decentralized systems.

Hong Kong

• UETH(opens in a new tab) and ETHDimsum are cooking up some exciting initiatives focused on cross-L2 interoperability and Account Abstraction topics during the Hong Kong Web3 Festival (April 6-9, 2025). Stay tuned!

Japan

• Japan to join global framework to monitor crypto trades in 2027.
• Sony’s Ethereum L2 Soneium launched a music NFT collection(opens in a new tab).
• Umazuki, an Ethereum research house, provides a recent update(opens in a new tab): Gohan's paper 'Benchmarking zkVMs: Efficiency, Bottlenecks, and Best Practices' has been accepted at the ZKProof7(opens in a new tab) workshop.
• World Expo, Blockchain Pavilion(opens in a new tab) (10th May - 3rd June), Osaka.

North Korea

• The North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group was responsible for(opens in a new tab) the February 21 cyberattack(opens in a new tab) on Bybit exchange, which resulted in the theft of $1.5 billion worth of crypto assets. Learn more here(opens in a new tab), and here(opens in a new tab).

Kazakhstan

• Black Ice Hacker Space(opens in a new tab) is active in organizing Ethereum Days meetups, covering Ethereum and security.

Dubai

• The Dark Side of Memecoins: Dubai Regulator Warns(opens in a new tab) of Market Manipulation and Scam Projects.

Europe 🏰

Germany

• Protocol Berg v2(opens in a new tab), the decentralized protocol and infrastructure conference, has opened its application for volunteers(opens in a new tab).
• If you are based in Berlin, check out Berlin Ethereum Meetup(opens in a new tab) and learn more about Remix.

Switzerland

• The Ethereum Foundation(opens in a new tab) welcomes Hsiao-Wei Wang(opens in a new tab) and Tomasz Stanczak(opens in a new tab) as co-Executive Directors.
• Aya Miyaguchi is closing the chapter as Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation soon and stepping into a new role(opens in a new tab) as its President.
• Crypto custodian BitGo is reportedly mulling an IPO(opens in a new tab).

Ukraine

• Support Ukraine(opens in a new tab), and the Ukrainian Ethereum community(opens in a new tab).
• Crazy times, but the Ukrainian builders are preparing new meetups and new hackathons, stay tuned!
• W3I(opens in a new tab) is focused on fueling the digital economy in Ukraine by developing the Ethereum and Web3 space. They work in close collaboration with government, academia, and the private sector to support cooperation and adoption.

Italy

• Supported by AKASHA Foundation(opens in a new tab) and Mihai Alisie(opens in a new tab), urbe.ETH(opens in a new tab) opened the first web3 hub in Rome(opens in a new tab).

Sweden

• Three master's students from KTH(opens in a new tab) are working on Ethereum research, thanks to Prof. Martin Monperrus.
  • Åryd, Viktor, AST Differencing for Solidity(opens in a new tab);
  • Andersson Kasche, Gustav, InvPurge: Reducing Invariant Noise with Logical Differencing(opens in a new tab);
  • Titouan, Forissier, EVeilM: EVM Bytecode Obfuscation(opens in a new tab).

Serbia

• ETHBelgrade is making history(opens in a new tab) - flying hackers & builders from ETHGlobal Prague to ETHBelgrade (Conference & Hackathon June 3rd - 8th, 2025), completely free.

Poland

• March 21-23: AI x Crypto Spring Hack(opens in a new tab), the hackathon and conference focused on AI agents in the EVM ecosystem organized by ETHWarsaw.

Romania

• Early Bird ETHCluj 2025 conference (June 26-28) tickets are now available(opens in a new tab)!

Bulgaria

• ZKProof 7(opens in a new tab) in Sofia, March 23-25, 2025. ZKProof is an initiative focused on the standardization of Zero-Knowledge Proofs.

North America 🗽

United States

• Trump said in a post on Truth Social that his January executive order on digital assets would create a Crypto Strategic Reserve(opens in a new tab) including BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and ADA.
• US Senator Hagerty introduced the GENIUS Act(opens in a new tab) to regulate stablecoins.
• The SEC acknowledged 21Shares’ filing to allow staking on its Ethereum ETF(opens in a new tab).
• Stablecoin issuer Tether reported $13b of profit in 2024(opens in a new tab).
• Uniswap v4 is here(opens in a new tab).
• Arbitrum's Offchain Labs introduced the crosschain broadcaster(opens in a new tab) - A building block for trustless Ethereum interoperability.
• FTX to start $16b creditor repayment on Feb. 18, 2025(opens in a new tab).
• UMA, Polymarket, and Eigenlayer announced a collaboration to build the next generation of optimistic oracle(opens in a new tab).
• Danny Ryan’s interview at ETHDenver(opens in a new tab) with Austin Griffith(opens in a new tab).
• Danny Ryan is back(opens in a new tab) and joined Etherealize as a cofounder to help onboard the world to Ethereum(opens in a new tab).

Canada

• zkSummit13(opens in a new tab) is happening on May 12th, 2025 in Toronto, Canada.

Latam 💃

Argentina

• Everything you need to know about President Milei and the $LIBR scandal is here(opens in a new tab) and here(opens in a new tab). A bleak scenario: most lost, few won(opens in a new tab).
• Vitalik: Argentina's Ethereum community is full of amazing builders(opens in a new tab). Hosting Devconnect in Argentina could be a great opportunity to show the best of what crypto can offer(opens in a new tab).
• Ethereum Argentina Cordoba Edition(opens in a new tab) (April 12-13, 2025).

Brazil

• Brazilian stock exchange B3 revealed it will introduce BTC options and ETH and SOL futures this year(opens in a new tab).
• ETHLatam(opens in a new tab), one of the biggest ETH conferences in Latam is coming to Brazil.

Costa Rica

• Invisible Garden Costa Rica(opens in a new tab) edition Builder applications are open now! This 6-week pop-up dev city will bring together top builders to learn, build, and connect in Ethereum, ZKP, AI, and Cybersecurity.

Africa 🦁

Nigeria

• Nigeria’s Federal Internal Revenue Service sued Binance for $81.5b in economic losses and back taxes(opens in a new tab).
• OnboardGlobal(opens in a new tab) has been integrated into Coinbase Wallet to enable people to onramp to crypto through P2P exchange(opens in a new tab), starting with Nigeria.
• If you want to learn Solidity, it's still not too late to join Web3Bridge's solidity course(opens in a new tab) next cohort.

Ethiopia

• ETHiopia(opens in a new tab) organized its first pop-up city, ETH hackathon, and conference from January 21st–February 21st, 2025.

Oceania 🏄

Australia

• Brisbane-based Ethereum liquid staking protocol Rocket Pool launched its Saturn devnet(opens in a new tab).
• If you love Ethereum and are based in Australia, I highly recommend checking out BokkyPooBah's Ethereum Workshop Chat and The Daily Gwei(opens in a new tab). IYKYK.
• Ethereum Melbourne(opens in a new tab) organizes monthly meetup, rsvp(opens in a new tab).

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! 🌸

Best regards,

Riely and the Geodework team.

❤️❤️❤️

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