The Ethereum Foundation held its second edition of Devconnect in Istanbul from November 13 to 19, 2023, drawing more than 3,500 developers, founders, and researchers to a week of technical workshops spread across more than 70 independent venues throughout the city.

The choice of Istanbul was deliberate: organizers cited visa accessibility for participants from South Asia and Africa, strong local transport infrastructure, and an active Turkish blockchain community as primary reasons for selecting the city over venues in Western Europe or North America.

A Summit Built Around Depth, Not Scale

Devconnect is not a traditional conference. The Ethereum Foundation coordinates the week-long gathering but does not curate the content. Each event is independently organized by a separate team, covers a specific technical subject, and issues its own tickets. The central anchor is a shared coworking hub where attendees can meet between sessions. Topics at the 2023 Istanbul edition included zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography, Layer 2 scaling solutions, account abstraction (a method of making Ethereum wallets more programmable), staking infrastructure, DeFi protocols, and smart contract security.

The format is also distinct from Devcon, the Ethereum Foundation's larger quadrennial conference. The Foundation has clarified that the two events serve different purposes. Devcon 7, held in Bangkok in November 2024, had an expected attendance of more than 12,000 and pursued broader public engagement, while Devconnect remains focused on working builders.

The Foundation described the event's purpose plainly in its post-event recap: "The heart of Devconnect was its focus on progress for the Ethereum ecosystem, bringing together the global community in one place and sparking real-life connections important for the decentralized ecosystem."

Hackathon and Attendance Data

Running concurrently with Devconnect, ETHGlobal Istanbul brought 1,350 hackers from 90 countries together to compete for more than $600,000 in prizes, producing 426 submitted projects. That compares to 1,100+ participants and 165 projects at the first Devconnect in Amsterdam in April 2022, suggesting meaningful growth in developer participation from one edition to the next.

Attendance at the Istanbul Cowork hub broke down as follows: developers made up 33.7% of participants, founders 19.4%, and researchers 11.6%. The largest single national group was Turkish locals, accounting for 17.5% of total Cowork attendance, outranking all other individual national delegations.

The event also used Zupass, an open-source ticketing tool that relies on zero-knowledge proofs to verify attendance, as its credentialing system.

Turkey's Crypto Market Provided Relevant Context

Istanbul was not a neutral host. By the end of 2023, roughly 40% of Turkey's population held or had held cryptocurrency, up from approximately 16% three years earlier, placing the country fourth globally by estimated transaction volume. Tether (USDT) dominated local trading with $37.4 billion in annual volume that year.

Ethereum ranked as the second most held asset among Turkish crypto users, with 45% of local holders reporting ETH exposure.

That same week, Binance Blockchain Week drew 2,000 in-person attendees to Istanbul alongside 500,000+ virtual participants, making the city a focal point for the global crypto industry in November 2023.

What This Means for Builders Outside the West

For developers in South Asia and Africa, venue selection for major Ethereum events carries material consequences. Obtaining Schengen visas or US entry visas remains a significant logistical and financial burden for builders in Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and similar markets. Turkey's e-visa regime is comparatively accessible, and the Foundation provided invitation letter support for Devconnect ticket holders.

The relevance is backed by adoption data. India ranked first on Chainalysis's 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index for the third consecutive year, and Pakistan placed third, driven by remittance and freelancer payment use cases where Ethereum-based stablecoins are common tools. Ethereum SDK tools including Ethers.js, Web3.js, Hardhat, and Web3.py recorded 1.9 million downloads in Q1 2023 alone, up 46% year over year, with Indian developers among the largest contributors to that growth.

In Africa, Nigeria leads the continent in Web3 developer activity and Ethereum contributor counts. According to a 2023 Consensys survey, half of Nigerian respondents reported awareness of the Web3 concept, a figure on par with US and Indian respondents.

What Comes Next

The Ethereum Foundation runs two distinct recurring event series, and both are shifting toward Asia. Devconnect, the practitioner-focused gathering, held its first edition in Amsterdam in April 2022 and its second in Istanbul in November 2023. Devcon, the Foundation's larger quadrennial conference, held its seventh edition (Devcon 7) in Bangkok in November 2024 and has confirmed its eighth edition (Devcon 8) for Mumbai, India in November 2026.

The Foundation has also launched Road to Devcon grants to fund grassroots developer community building across South and Southeast Asia ahead of that event. For builders in those regions, the center of the Ethereum developer calendar is moving closer to home.