Berlin Ethereum Meetup Relaunch: Privacy and Ecosystem Updates | Martin & Eniko (October 2025)

Okay, thank you all for coming. Welcome to October edition of the Ethereum Berlin meetup. We're back after a bit of a hiatus. We're already running a little bit late compared to this agenda that we planned, but that's that's how it goes. That's consistent.

Um, just to kick things off, Enco and myself will um do a little intro here first. Niko and I both work at the Ethereum Foundation and I'm based in Berlin and Inu is partly based in Berlin. After that, we'll have over here. He'll come talk a bit about privacy, which is something that he's working actively on and has been on a for a long time. And uh then we'll finish off um with a really really cool panel and discussion around privacy in web 3 um with a couple of people who were at the Cyberpunk retreat um a couple of weeks ago here just outside Berlin.

Um yeah, that's pretty much what we're going to go through today. Um first I just want to say welcome to the 12th year of Ethereum Berlin meetups. Um I think that's pretty impressive that um you know we celebrated the 10 years of the Berlin Ethereum meet up last year at CBase. That's where one of these yeah the screenshot here is from and uh yeah now we're on to to year 12 and I think that's that's incredible. And as you probably all know Berlin has a very special place in Ethereum's history.

Um I don't know who took this photo. Maybe the terrace knows. I just took the photo from his Twitter, but you're already on the photo, but um yeah, obviously very special photo from from the mainet launch in 2015. Um and um it I think the ecosystem here has really grown. Um we see that in particular during Berlin Blockchain Week or this year it became blockchain weeks because there was so many different events.

Here were some of them um happening this year. We also had East Berlin last last year and and we've had many East Berlin. We've had many Davcons in the past as well um and several safecons as well and um it really puts Berlin on the map and we see how many things that are happening um and how strong the community is here. But I think it's also fair to sometimes ask, you know, what what happens when the visitors leave, when it's that one week or two of the year when everyone is in Berlin, then then it's it's the rest of us that are left and um how do we make sure that we continue to cultivate a strong crypto ecosystem here. Um, I would argue that the ecosystem is is very big and it's it's quite strong here, but I actually think the community itself can be strengthened and um, Nico is going to talk a little bit about some of these things.

I would also pose it as a question here about what we can do to strengthen the community. Is it that we should be more regular with these kinds of meetups? Um, should we have more places to meet and work like full for example? Or is it that we need more better coordination, better online communities where you can meet people and and um you know catch up with people that are like-minded or working on similar things? I think that's something that that we can really improve on um at the yeah at the state of where things are here in Berlin currently.

Now I'll pass it over to Eniko to talk about some new initiatives happening. Yeah, thanks so much Martin for the intro and also for your work that you've been doing here in Berlin. Martin is heavily involved with a lot of those events that he mentioned. So, thanks for your work. Um, and thanks all of you for showing up.

There is a lot to do in Berlin. So, we appreciate your time and being here with us tonight. Also, thanks for the full not team for hosting us tonight. um and also hosting a bunch of other events and being um an important part of this local ecosystem here in Berlin. Um I wanted to amplify a little bit on the community aspect.

Um I've been also building communities. Um I've been running meetups in Bash for three years. Uh similar, similar crowd. So, um I'm kind of new here, but uh I really feel like this is uh really like home and this is, you know, it's one of the really important aspects of these local communities that Martin also mentioned. It's uh yeah, so the network is 10 years old, right?

So, Ethereum is um you know trying to decentralize the whole IT stack, not just the financial system like Bitcoin does, right? So, there's a lot of potentials there. there there are a lot of possibilities. Uh the technology is really really strong and it's getting better and it's being uh improved. Um but I think the people and the communities are also very very important aspects of this.

I think first of all there are a lot of really really amazing people in this ecosystem and I think it's also because of the ethos the values that Ethereum has and had over the last 10 years um and it still stands very strong um I think a lot of people found new meaning new purpose um you know by working in the web space and and in the Ethereum space um you know after all the um boring cubic ical corporate jobs. I think um a lot of people organically want to contribute and not just working on this as a full-time job but also building communities, organizing events like here in Berlin and in a lot of uh other parts of the world. So I just wanted to also like thank everyone here and everywhere else who has been building communities, events, building the ecosystem, whether it's the tech or it's communities or socials. So you're all very important part of this this thing. It's a decentralized ecosystem.

So without the people, without the communities, without the events, this would not be possible, right? So that's a really crucial part. And I think it's also very important to mention that a lot of these are very grassroots. So nobody's really telling anybody to do any of these. Um it's a very strong vision that people organically want to build uh on and that's been done in the last 10 years in many different parts of the world.

Uh but you just a very quick question like who is totally new to Ethereum or doesn't really heard about it but okay perfect. I love it. There's a little girl in the back and amazing. She's our um youngest participant. Uh cool.

So, everyone is kind of um a little bit up to date. So, that's amazing. Um so, as you probably heard, there have been um some changes, recent changes um within the ecosystem and also just a little bit of shift how the Ethereum Foundation um is participating in the ecosystem. The Ethereum Foundation never wanted to control um the ecosystem or the network or anything. um on that matter.

So um everything that's been done, a lot of these things are grassroots again. Um but there's been some feedback um um from the communities u around the world a lot of people that they would just appreciate a little more support you know um from the foundation or generally just a little more um connection and structure within the ecosystem and building communities. So I don't know if you've read read this article. This been published recently I think in the summer end of the end of July um about the future of ecosystem development at dutium foundation. Um and I think the most important thing to highlight here is that um the foundation still doesn't want to control anything or or tell anybody what to do.

It's more about just being there and and providing more support and and activating and empowering the ecosystem and amplify the ecosystem because there's again there's been so many amazing things done already in the past. Um and but just be there a little bit more present and uh uh interact more. So there are I wanted to mention a couple of new teams. Um there are these new teams now that are focusing on strengthening and amplific amplifying uh the ecosystem like the enterprise exploration developer exploration app relations founder success digital studio um specialized events ethereum everywhere which I'm part of this team we are focusing on event support and I will talk about a little bit um and the ecodation team. So these are some of the new teams that are will be more focused on these particular ecosystem um participants and supporting them in many different ways.

So as I mentioned uh we are an ecosystem development and amplification team. we will be um focusing on events and communities especially the local reoccurring communities um such as regular meetups um permanent community hubs which is a new concept and I will also talk about that a little bit more um and there are of course a lot of other amazing events pop-up cities hackathons that are also strengthening the ecosystem so these are our main focus areas we are working on a more structured support system for these events. Um yeah and if you want you we just launched our Twitter account so if you want to uh follow us for updates that's the QR you can also get in touch but you can also find me later um if you want to connect and on that note I wanted to mention that we just recently launched our Berlin Ethereum community hub um which um many of you actually experienced that already we are starting slow because this is actually in the Ethereum Foundation's office Um and it's only on Wednesdays for now. There are co-working sessions during the day, open to anybody. Uh you can submit an application.

I will show the QR in a bit. And uh and we have some social hours after to connect and and uh get to know each other, exchange ideas, and we might have some other programs in the future. Um and as Marty mentioned, we also want to do some more local community activities, events. um and see how we can strengthen the local community here in Berlin. Yeah.

So, basically I already said this but uh during the day there's co-working, there are social hours and if you want to join just scan that QR and you can just fill out the application form and also spread the word. Um it's also for locals and people who just visit or digital nomads or it's not just for permanent uh residents here. Um, so it's a good way to network and connect with each other. Yeah. And I just wanted to share a couple of pictures.

Maybe you can spot yourself those pictures because as I mentioned, some of you were there. So I just kind of wanted to show um some of the vibes. And on that note, I will pass it back to Martin to talk about some more uh privacy related things.

Perfect. Thank you, Eno. Um yeah, I just posed a question here. Why are we here today? We hear about community.

We've talked about that. But then secondarily, we're also here to talk about privacy and that's the theme of today's meetup. Um privacy is very important and we have a lot of work to do. Um need to ensure that privacy is protected um in our digital lives as well. It sometimes comes quite naturally in our uh yeah normal I guess real world life.

Um but we need to be very uh conscious of how we protect it um online on chain and um privacy is one of those things that matters for everyone. It's a lot of people can agree that we need more privacy. I think a lot of the cipher punks definitely want way more privacy, but even if you go to a lot of enterprises and institutions, they want more privacy as well. So, it's um it's something that matters for everyone. A lot of people want to see more privacy on Ethereum and um and we need to make that happen.

We need to support that. And some of the strong values at the Ethereum Foundation is credible neutrality, security, openness, and all of these become even stronger, even more valuable when you pair them with privacy. And so therefore, it's very important that we push this domain forward. Um, yesterday just released a blog about the EF's commitment to privacy. If you're curious to learn a little bit more about the specific initiatives that the EF is um is is making to to push privacy forward, I encourage you to to check it out on the Ethereum Foundation blog.

Um, I'm not going to go too much into the initiatives and details here, but if you have any questions about it, feel free to to ask me afterwards. And a start of the EF, the ecosystem is is growing a lot. Um I'm I'm glad to know that that there won't be a slideshow after this because I was wondering if I was stealing this slide from from the Web3 privacy now team. Um really really great overview and they have a really great um explorer site as well if you want to learn more about different privacy projects in the ecosystem. And um yeah, with that being said, now we're going to get the real privacy experts to start talking and and not someone like me.

So I'm going to pass it over to Leeris to uh hear more about privacy.