Are Crypto Conferences Worth It? | Best Crypto Conferences in 2022

Ty Smith0:00

What is up, guys? Today we are discussing crypto conferences. So we're going to go into what a crypto conference is like, our favorite crypto conferences, who goes to these conferences, and some tips to make conferences worthwhile. And if you stay through the end, we will give you a 10% discount code for our favorite crypto conference. All right, Liz, let's first kind of give an overview about what a crypto conference is essentially. I'll kick it off. It's a conference put on by an industry player, typically it's like an event company in the crypto space. It's kind of a place for people to congregate, do business together, just kind of discuss crypto. What would you add to that?

Liz0:36

It's great for in-person community building. As much as there's so much interaction that takes place online, so many people post about meeting their Twitter friends in real life, but I think it's a huge component to building relationships, and it's amazing for community building and seeing other key players, other key opinion leaders in the space, learning more about them, getting that face-to-face time. It really makes a difference, especially now with kind of the weird events, no events structure we've had for the last two years. People have loved being in person again, and so when there is that opportunity, I think it's massive.

Ty Smith1:08

Yeah, as far as who goes to crypto conferences, they're all a little bit different.

Liz1:14

Yeah, it really depends on the audience.

Ty Smith1:16

Yeah, but you'll see crypto investors, you'll see crypto media companies, you'll see just people that are fans of decentralization or Bitcoin or NFTs, depending on the conference. There's always tons of cool companies presenting, sponsoring. They always have cool events and oftentimes interesting marketing tactics that me as a crypto marketing nerd is always looking at.

Liz1:36

Yeah. Oh, and it's great for sales if the conference is more toward selling services or your projects or looking for investors, that's fantastic as well to have those experiential moments. If you have something that's a little more tangible, you can have those in-real-life experiences where people are actually able to use or play your product. There's huge advantages to conferences, speaker opportunities, whether you're watching speakers or you would like to be a speaker yourself. It's great for building brand authority. The list goes on and on about the benefits from a B2B side, B2C side, again, depending on the audience, because some people at, for example, the Bitcoin conference, there was such a mix of people there from different leaders in the space to just people who love Bitcoin. I thought it was such an interesting crowd, but it was really cool of who all kind of made up that space.

Ty Smith2:21

Yeah, exactly. Why don't we discuss some of what our favorite crypto conferences are? You brought up Bitcoin, Bitcoin 2022 in Miami this spring is one that we're definitely going to, one that we've been going to. We went to one, what was that? I get so mixed up in COVID times, like the timeline of things. Was that a long time ago or was that recently? I can't even remember.

Liz3:09

The blur. I have to pull up my calendar. It could have been yesterday or three years, even three years ago. No, it was in June of 2021, so this past summer.

Ty Smith3:11

Yeah, that was a fun one. That one was focused more specifically on Bitcoin, as the name sounds. But there were people from all walks of crypto. There were people interested in DeFi there, interested in kind of altcoins.

Liz3:48

Well, there was the Shitcoin Conference, too, next door. There were other satellite events, yeah.

Ty Smith3:59

Which is fun because leave it to the crypto people to branch off from a crypto conference. Everyone's got their own take on the subject. That was a great one. The whole Coinbound team essentially was there and it was awesome for networking and just meeting clients, new clients as well as clients that were existing. It was just a good time. Miami is always fun. It's going to be in Miami again this spring. I think it's in South Beach in the spring.

Liz5:20

Oh, cool.

Ty Smith5:21

Yeah, which is kind of cool. It was a little bit more inland last time. This time it's going to be in South Beach, which is going to be insane. That's a great one. NFT NYC we went to recently, that was fun. That was obviously more focused on NFTs. The ETH community was huge there, the Flow community was huge there. They let really everyone speak, which was kind of like a cool decentralization move, in my opinion.

Liz5:37

Yeah, that is really cool.

Ty Smith5:38

Yeah, they've kind of just said, if you have a story to say, speak. It was a very democratized event. LA Blockchain Week is always a good time.

Liz5:48

I think, wasn't there one in Austin?

Ty Smith5:50

There was. They're all over the place, honestly. There used to be only a few events a year in the crypto world, and now there's a lot.

Liz6:28

They're growing quickly, and they're becoming massive. I mean, how many thousands of people were at the one in Miami? And didn't it just start out super small? You said that there was probably a room of like, I don't know, a couple hundred people or something when you first started going.

Ty Smith6:36

When I first started going to crypto conferences, like all crypto conferences, there was maybe a few hundred people there. It was like everyone kind of knew each other. It was just very tight-knit, and it's really blown up with the popularity of crypto and decentralization this year. But both are fun. There's just so much more money flowing around now, I guess. They've always been fun, though. Why don't we go through the benefits of attending conferences?

Ty Smith6:55

Number one is networking, of course. Like you said, there's companies there, there's people that are interested, people that are just in the industry. If you're looking for a job in crypto, it's a great place to go. There's so much opportunity in the world of crypto these days, and at these conferences is like the number one place to really meet people face-to-face and either get a job or secure clients, find investors. There's always investors here. What else? What other benefits do we have?

Liz7:24

B2B or even B2C sales.

Ty Smith7:26

Yeah, yeah. Everyone in the industry is at these events, and just huge opportunity for networking. The drawbacks, though, we should cover some drawbacks. What are the drawbacks to a conference? It's really just like the cost of it. They do tend to be kind of expensive.

Liz8:03

Yeah, the cost is definitely a factor, especially with what can be done virtually now. But again, I just feel like once you have that face-to-face interaction, it does so much more in the long run.

Ty Smith8:11

Yeah, I think...

Liz8:15

Or like when you can tangibly experience something.

Ty Smith8:30

Yeah, I think that these conferences are priced to the point of being more for people that are in the industry and have an agenda of a way to make money, like they have a company in the space. They're not so much priced for just the retail investor, I would say. Some of them, some of them are different.

Liz8:51

Some, I don't know, some now are like, there's all these different millionaires from crypto, so could be the retail investor.

Ty Smith9:25

Yeah, that's true. I would say unless you're going to get really kind of dive into the networking side of things and work the room essentially at a conference, it can be kind of expensive. But that's really the only drawback. We find it super worthwhile. We go to a lot of them, and we'll continue to. Tips, let's go over tips for conferences to make sure people get the most out of, if they're going to a conference, the most out of the events. Networking, like we've said, it's like everything. It's like the one of the only times that the whole crypto world kind of comes together, at least the US whole community will kind of come together and just talk about crypto.

Liz9:46

Well, and international.

Ty Smith9:47

There is, but we just...

Liz9:57

There are a lot of people who fly in, too.

Ty Smith9:58

Yeah, no, I know. We were just talking with a couple of the clients that are out of the country, and they're all going to the one in Miami. Yeah, so networking is a tip. Make sure, if you're an introvert, like I consider myself kind of an introvert, kind of push yourself to go out of your shell and talk to people.

Ty Smith10:18

Realize that most people in the world of crypto are kind of like introverted, I feel like, to some extent. They're kind of people that enjoy being behind a computer screen. It's a different experience networking in person. But everyone is kind of like, there's a little bit of like awkwardness, I would say, but realizing that everyone is experiencing the same thing and just kind of pushing through it and making friends and conversations goes a long way in making the event worthwhile.

Liz10:53

You can all come and talk to me. I could talk about anything and nothing for 10 hours, so.

Ty Smith10:58

Me, too. I mean, especially we can chat about marketing stuff. We had tons of people, I guess people that just listen to this podcast were coming up to us in Miami, and that was kind of cool, and we're just chatting about crypto marketing. It was like, who in the world is into crypto marketing? It must be a number measured by the thousands, not like anything more than that. But they all come together at these events, and we'll all chat and kind of talk about like different tactics for marketing, and it's kind of like whatever your niche is in crypto, there's something like that at conferences.

Ty Smith11:22

A tip for, I guess this is kind of specific to Bitcoin 2022 or '21, they have the thing called the Whale Pass, which is kind of expensive, but it's like more for people that are really involved in the industry. If you can afford it, I recommend it highly. We got it, or I got it last time we went, and you just meet like a much more like involved group of people. I mean, the tickets are like $15,000, like they're pretty, they're pretty expensive. You have to be like either an entrepreneur in the space or business owner, something like that. But if you can afford it, there's some pretty awesome perks. I think for this next one, they're doing like a whole industry night. They always make it worthwhile if you can afford it. So I would recommend getting the Whale Pass.

Liz11:48

I think always try to be goal-oriented. Conferences can be a whirlwind of people, events, different booths and experiences. So I always look to know the layout as much as I can before entering because I really want to be strategic with my time, make sure that we know the content that we're getting while we're there. This is super niche to what I do, but like know what types of people are going to be there, who to connect with. There's hundreds of huge names at these things now, just like we were mentioning. So you're not going to get to talk to everyone, and if you're going to have a really tight schedule, you want to make sure that you're really using that time wisely because this just takes place over a few days, and a lot of people can only be in town for so long.

Liz12:17

So make sure that you're really hitting the mark on why you're there because you can really get lost. There's so much fun stuff going on, like there was the whole NFT gallery and whatnot. I mean, all of that is cool, like definitely go and experience things, but know why you're there, who you need to talk to to get whatever business you need done, and always try to see the map and layout beforehand just so you have an idea of what you're walking into.

Ty Smith12:48

Yeah, another thing which I think should be honestly like number one on the list is the satellite events I found to always be so worthwhile. So much business gets done at the conference, but like so many deals get signed and done at the bar afterwards. And, some people, again, there's a little, there's a little like, not tension, but a little bit of awkwardness sometimes that happens at conferences. At the bar, you can get a drink in you and whatever, network and schmooze people and stuff like that, and it's, I don't know, I will always be a huge fan of going to the bar after the conferences. And, oftentimes, the conferences have a bar at them, which is kind of cool.

Liz13:13

Yeah.

Ty Smith13:14

Yeah, and every conference that I've ever been to has not only like the core conference events, but like these satellite events afterwards, which are interesting to explore. All right, cool. I mean, like we said, our favorite conferences: Bitcoin 2022, NFT NYC, LA Blockchain Week. I mean, there's so many. We're going to, what is it, LA NFT, that's coming up soon. That's a cool one put on by the Edge of NFT guys.

Ty Smith13:37

And we did promise to give a discount code. So the discount code is going to be for my favorite event, which is Bitcoin 2022. If you use code Coinbound, C-O-I-N-B-O-U-N-D, you'll get 10% off your tickets, which is kind of cool. They hooked us up with that. And we will absolutely be there. So if you use the code, shoot me a DM on Twitter, too, because I enjoy marketing and I enjoy learning how effective things are. All right, cool. I mean, let's wrap this one up then. I don't think I have anything else. Hopefully, we'll see everyone that listens to this at conferences and at events. As always, shoot me DMs on Twitter. I love talking with everyone that listens to the podcast, and we'll catch you on the next one. Bye, guys.

Liz14:03

Bye