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Denver, CO, February 5, 2026 – ETHDenver, the world’s largest Web3-focused innovation festival, returns in 2026 for its eighth year. ETHDenver has contributed nearly $250 million in cumulative economic impact to Colorado and has served as a launch point for thousands of open-source projects and startups since its start in 2018.
To incorporate the community feedback given and observations made from 2025’s festival, ETHDenver’s organizers have curated half-day content blocks across the main event, featuring back-to-back sessions aligned to specific tracks and communities.
This year, the festival takes shape as a summit-style format, bringing together the industry’s most influential operators, capital allocators, and public-sector leaders.
"ETHDenver has always been about meeting builders where they are," said John Paller, Founder and Chief Steward of ETHDenver. "When side events doubled because our community craved focused experiences, we evolved. The summit format gives every attendee curated pathways to the conversations that matter most to them."
Over the past eight years, ETHDenver has grown alongside its namesake ecosystem, Ethereum, evolving from its early developer roots into a platform supporting global infrastructure, startups, and public-sector participation.
“The culture that started in hacker basements is now influencing national policy and boardroom strategy,” Paller said. “We did not move toward the world. The world moved toward us.”
Crypto is no longer an experiment but a global industry, and the United States is increasingly setting its pace and direction. At the center of that momentum is ETHDenver, where over 25,000 builders, founders, institutions, and policymakers from 115 countries and all 50 U.S. states attend with the common goal of shaping Web3’s direction.
ETHDenver, which operates as a community-owned organization run by SporkDAO, uses a patronage model that shares profits directly with the members who build and sustain the event.
Over the past year, ETHDenver distributed more than $470,000 in community-generated profits across two distributions: $50,000 in December 2024 and $420,000 in October 2025. The October distribution rewarded approximately 7,500 qualifying members based on their staked $SPORK, demonstrating a model where contributors participate directly in the value they help create.
ETHDenver 2026 will take place from February 17 to 21 at a state-of-the-art campus venue in Denver. ETHDenver is somETHing for everyone, offering opportunities for first-time attendees and experienced builders alike to explore, build, and contribute within a community-driven ecosystem.
About John Paller
John Paller is a Denver-based blockchain entrepreneur and futurist who founded ETHDenver, the world's largest Web3 and Ethereum-focused hackathon and festival that has attracted over 95,000 participants across seven seasons, and created Opolis, an innovative employment ecosystem for independent workers.
With over 20 years of experience in talent acquisition and HR before discovering Ethereum in 2014, he now serves on the SporkDAO Board, where he pioneers patronage token models to sustainably fund decentralized ecosystems while leveraging his expertise in fundraising, investor relations, and community development to democratize employment and foster Web3 communities. His groundbreaking work in reshaping the future of business earned him recognition as one of the Denver Business Journal's "40 Under 40" in 2014, and he continues to lead as a visionary in the blockchain space, bridging traditional employment models with decentralized innovation.
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