Main takeaway from @token2049 week in Dubai:

The best founders I talked to were laser focused on revenue. Many of them already generating revenue, or had clear executable paths for revenue.

Other takeaways:

• General main topics of discussion were apps in general, zk - specifically zkTLS, AI, sustainable revenue (apps, services, protocols, whatever), MCP, RWAs (specifically real estate), prediction markets

• AI was a very very popular topic, probably the most popular topic, and AI events were well attended

• Dubai top 2 / 3 crypto cities in the world (+ NYC, Singapore)

• Most new infra founders are also building their own app, and were the most promising infra companies imo

• Best app founders / ideas had differentiating features enabled by verifiable off-chain services of some kind

• Zero discussions about memecoins

• Events that functioned and focused to be more as Schelling points were the best ones

• A lot of founders were in Dubai to fundraise, with wildly varying degrees of success from what I understood

• I agree with @ASvanevik that Token Dubai is now one of the top 2 crypto events in the world, great signal to noise ratio but you have to pick the right events

Well represented in top of mind (partially due to my own echo chamber and event selection, not comprehensive):

@solana

@base

@RiscZero

@megaeth_labs

@LayerZero_Core

@berachain

@KaitoAI

@OpacityNetwork + other zkTLS protocols