The Vibes From the ‘Davos for Degens’ as Bitcoin and Ethereum Plummeted

The atmosphere at this year’s premier cryptocurrency summit—colloquially dubbed the ‘Davos for Degens’—offered a striking paradox: exuberant optimism colliding head-on with market devastation. As Bitcoin shed nearly 15% over the conference week, crashing toward critical support levels, and Ethereum followed suit amidst rising contagion fears, the expected mood of widespread panic was notably absent.

Instead of watching ticker prices flash red on their phones, attendees demonstrated a resilient, almost defiant, fatalism. The casual banter concerning leveraged losses was common, yet the underlying focus of the panels and private meetings had shifted dramatically. The ‘tourist class’—those solely interested in quick speculative gains—had vanished. What remained was a dense concentration of infrastructure developers, institutional venture capitalists, and core protocol teams.

Discussions migrated swiftly from price-action predictions and ‘to the moon’ narratives to fundamental infrastructure resilience. The prevailing sentiment among builders was that the bear market represents a necessary ‘cleaning of the decks,’ forcing projects to demonstrate genuine utility rather than relying on unsustainable marketing hype. Topics dominating the halls included the practical application of zero-knowledge proofs, regulatory pathways for stablecoins, decentralized identity solutions, and the long-term viability of Layer 2 scaling solutions.

The VCs, while cautious, remained deployed, viewing the plummeting valuations as a prime opportunity to invest in discounted foundational technology. The vibe, ultimately, was less about fear and more about focus: surviving the crypto winter by continuing to ‘BUIDL’ (build) toward the next cycle. The ‘degen’ energy, it appears, has been channeled away from speculative trading and into technological survival.

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