Do conferences provide value for money?

If you have ever looked into attending conferences related to Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, or blockchain, you might have been surprised to see the cost involved. Tickets often cost close to $1,000, and this doesn’t even include travel costs or accommodation.

With so many taking place nowadays, this begs the question of whether they are actually providing value for money.

Conferences can be a great place to network and learn more about new companies and the industry as a whole. Yet within the cryptocurrency industry, which is still yet to fully mature, many of these conferences tend to be full of half-baked ideas that provide little to no value. This leads on to further issues whereby instead of the sharing of knowledge, the speeches become more like sales pitches.

Conferences then deteriorate to become a Dragon’s Den style battle to see who can impress the investors the most with flashy buzzwords and a nonsensical idea.

A way to combat this is to hold individual cryptocurrency-based conferences. In doing so, and by avoiding a bunch of sales pitches, developers can focus on one coin and how to work on and improve that single entity. Such conferences are common for Bitcoin or Ethereum, but for the lesser-known coins, this can be difficult. The only slight issue with this is sometimes such conferences can become overly technical for the average interested user.

New coins in particular need to get their name out there, and a conference is a great way to begin to tell people about your product. Sadly, their product usually sucks. If you’re reading this and think I am talking about your product, I probably am. I have been to three conferences in the past couple of months and I struggle to remember any product that really caught my attention.

Much like the rest of the market, less is more. The industry is oversaturated with too many cryptocurrencies, too many blockchain projects, and too many related conferences. This is unlikely to change any time soon. Whilst the price drop has been harmful for many, there are many more hoping that if they can hang on a little longer, they will be rewarded.

As an individual, be extremely picky about which conferences you choose to visit.