If you didn’t make DevCon, don’t worry: we’ve got you covered. While you were trading in the trenches, or whichever crypto sector floats your boat, DevCon delegates were networking, schmoozing, and discussing – as well as developing – the narratives that will define the next 12 months within the industry. Here’s a quick rundown of the top topics that were on everyone’s lips. Pay close attention cos you’ll be hearing them mentioned a lot more in the months to come.

DeFi Is Back

As you would expect from an Ethereum-focused conference, DeFi was back on the menu. While DeFi assets, like most tokens, have been rallying lately, the sector’s resurgence is about more than merely the updraft of a full-blown bull market. There was a real sense of conviction at DevCon that new use cases with genuine utility and sustainable yield are being deployed and that this will be particularly instrumental in attracting institutions. Up until now, DeFi has been almost exclusively for retail. Word in the conference halls is that’s all going to change next year as verticals such as RWAs start to bear fruit and liquidity floods in.

DeSci Is Now a Thing

After first coming to prominence last year through a handful of early projects before fading away almost as fast, DeSci – decentralized science – is back on the menu. DWF Labs’ Managing Partner Andrei Grachev was one of those in attendance who noted the DeSci love-in, commenting on the appearance of Vitalik and the newly liberated CZ at the Binance Labs DeSci day. It’s also no coincidence that several of the Solana tokens that have been pulling impressive multiples in the past week have been DeSci-based.

Ethereum Scaling Is Happening

There was good news and bad news about Ethereum scaling at DevCon. The good news is that the Ethereum of the future is going to be faster, more powerful, and generally kick-ass than anything you’ve seen up until now. The only downside is that you’re going to have to wait a few years to see the best of it. In his keynote talk on Ethereum scaling, researcher Justin Drake proposed Beam Chain as a replacement for the Beacon Chain, aggregating existing upgrades that have been proposed such as native ZK proof support. But there is a kicker: the Beam Chain won’t surface till 2029.

Everyone’s Building AI Agents

AI was always going to be a hot topic at DevCon, but particular attention was lavished on AI agents: autonomous bots that can execute trades based on pre-set strategies, leveraging market data and trends.

They can also identify arbitrage opportunities and execute high-frequency trades more efficiently than humans. DevCon delegates were excited to swap ideas and predict the crypto areas where AI agents will have the most impact, from UX to trading.

Memecoins Are Unstoppable

Finally, you don’t need to have made DevCon to grasp this one, but right now memecoins are sucking all of the liquidity and momentum out of altcoins. Unless a token has a specific use case – e.g. DeFi governance – it’s likely underperforming even the dumbest memecoins during this bull market. As DWF Labs’ Fiona Clairema notes in her DevCon synopsis, “The rise of memecoins reflects that this cycle is more community-driven than previous cycles. While altcoins are generally not lumped into the same category as memecoins, both are competing on retail trading liquidity – and right now there’s only one winner.”