Why did Vitalik Buterin go to Montenegro instead of attending the Wanxiang Conference in Hong Kong?

Recently, during the Hong Kong Web3 conference, we witnessed the prosperity and vibrancy of Hong Kong. However, some people couldn't help but ask, "Why didn't Vitalik Buterin attend the Wanxiang Conference in Hong Kong?"

After all, we all know that Ethereum and the organizer of the Hong Kong Web3 Conference, Wanxiang, have a deep relationship: in the early stages of Ethereum's development, Xiao Feng sponsored Ethereum with 500,000 US dollars in the name of Wanxiang Blockchain Laboratory. HashKey Group also invested in Ethereum through its subsidiary and became one of the early investors in Ethereum. It was these funds that helped Ethereum get back on track.

Since then, Vitalik Buterin has been working closely with Xiao Feng, such as Vitalik actively participating in the Wanxiang Global Blockchain Summit every year, even if he cannot attend in person, he will connect via video. Therefore, V God's absence from the Wanxiang Conference in Hong Kong has become a question mark in many people's minds.

Moreover, the community has discovered that Vitalik Buterin has not appeared offline for a long time. Apart from recently praising the impressive performance of ChatGPT 3.5 and expressing that ZK-EVM will become the third client of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin's movements seem a bit mysterious. It has been almost two months since Vitalik Buterin was interviewed by Bloomberg in Denver in February and appeared offline at the Web3 conference in Ghana.

Therefore, the news that Vitalik Buterin will officially attend the EDCON conference held in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, is highly anticipated.

V God confirms what EDCON conference is

EDCON (Ethereum Development Conference) is a non-profit annual global Ethereum conference dedicated to serving the Ethereum ecosystem and promoting interaction and communication within the global Ethereum community. Since 2017, this year's EDCON conference in Montenegro is the sixth. Official statistics show that this multi-year event has attracted more than 10,000 participants, over 2,000 developers, over 300 speakers, over 450 projects, over 400 supporters, and 300,000 online viewers.

EDCON guests include eight members of the Ethereum Foundation, including Vitalik Buterin, Tim Beiko, and Barry Whitehat, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, Gitcoin co-founder Scott Moore, StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson, Matter Labs co-founder Alex Gluchowski, and Polygon zkEVM technical lead Jordi Baylina. In addition, there are more blockchain project leaders and research leaders from different regions, such as Balaji Srinivasan, author and investor of "The Network State", Primavera De Filippi, blockchain researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research and the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, and Cy Li, director of the University of Ethereum.

In addition, EDCON 2023 will also explore the latest developments in Ethereum technology, such as the latest progress in Ethereum upgrades and scalability issues. This conference will also discuss the applications of Ethereum in fields such as finance, energy, health, art, and how to improve Ethereum's community governance, blockchain regulation, Layer 3, decentralized society, decentralized governance, network countries, and how to develop better development tools and infrastructure for decentralized applications (DApps).

Why did Vitalik Buterin go to Montenegro instead of Hong Kong?

After V confirmed his attendance at the EDCON conference in Montenegro, people couldn't help but compare it to the Hong Kong WEB3 conference. This brings us back to the initial question: why did V choose to attend the conference in Montenegro instead of Hong Kong?

Some people believe that the answer to this question can also be seen from the organizers and nature of the event. Vitalik did not come to Hong Kong because the Hong Kong Web3 Festival is more like a festival for Web3 brand activities rather than a summit.

After all, EDCON is a non-profit global annual Ethereum conference organized by Linktime, De University of Ethereum, and ETHPlanet, and is one of the largest events in the Ethereum community. Vitalik Buterin attends every year. The Web3 Festival, on the other hand, is a Web3 event brand jointly launched by Wanxiang Blockchain Laboratory and HashKey Group.

There is not only a big difference between the organizers and invited guests, but also a huge gap among attending project parties. This gap seems to be closely related to the different aesthetics and markets in North America and Asia, and can even be said to be playing their own games. For example, Sui, who attended the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, although the founding team is in the United States, they seem to have given up the North American market and focused on the Asian market.

There are also some voices pointing out that many foreign project parties dare not come to this Hong Kong event because they want to comply with regulations and show goodwill to the US, which will lead them to actively draw a line with the domestic market.

Some people in the community have pointed out that the guests of the Hong Kong Web3 Festival include the Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Paul Chan Mo-po, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman of Wanxiang Blockchain & HashKey, Hong, CEO of OKX, and CZ, founder of Binance (live broadcast). For V God, the Hong Kong Web3 Festival is not as closely related to Ethereum's orthodox conferences such as EDCON, EthCC, ETHDenver, and Devcon.

Other than that, V God may have geographical advantages by going to Montenegro instead of Hong Kong. After all, Vitalik Buterin obtained Montenegrin citizenship in April 2022 and was granted Montenegrin citizenship.

Montenegro is developing a comprehensive legislative framework that will maximize the use of encryption technology and stimulate growth in the sector. Many believe that Vitalik will support further promotion of Montenegro and the overall development of the Balkan blockchain industry, as evidenced by the EDCON conference held in Montenegro. This background inevitably brings to mind Vitalik's meeting with the Prime Minister of Montenegro during the 2019 Bitcoin bear market, where they discussed the use and development of digital currency and blockchain technology in Montenegro. With the convening of the EDCON 2023 conference, people are also looking forward to Vitalik's views and attitudes towards blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

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