ETHShanghai 2025 Launches in October: Expanding Ethereum and Shaping an Open Future

As one of China's most influential annual Ethereum events, the highly anticipated ETHShanghai is returning. Now in its fourth year, ETHShanghai will feature a new theme, "Scaling Ethereum, Shaping the Open Future." From October 18th to 22nd, 2025, ETHShanghai will host five days of in-depth discussions, technical exchanges, and ecosystem connections in Shanghai.

This year's event will continue to be led by ETHPanda, co-organized by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab, PANews, and TinTinLand. It will be held in the same city and concurrently with the annual Wanxiang Blockchain Global Summit, bringing together developers, researchers, and industry builders from around the world to discuss the future development direction of Ethereum.

We are committed to creating an annual event truly dedicated to builders, focusing on technological innovation, user experience, and Asian perspectives. Four of the five days will be dedicated to hackathons, complemented by online Ethereum learning and casual hackathons, as well as offline technical workshops and project demos. Our goal is to bring together the most active developers and researchers in the Asia-Pacific region, accelerate the implementation of innovative ideas, and bring outstanding projects from code to users, ultimately fostering a sustainable and open ecosystem.

Scaling Ethereum, shaping an open future

Ethereum stands at a historic new starting point. 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of its mainnet launch, and the entire ecosystem is forging ahead with unprecedented momentum. Market sentiment is at an all-time high, with prices approaching all-time highs. Authoritative financial institutions such as Standard Chartered Bank predict that the price will reach $25,000 within the next few years. This surge is driven by the accelerating influx of institutional investors, the potential demand for spot ETFs, and the steady progress of Ethereum's technical roadmap. Ethereum is rapidly evolving from a testing ground for tech enthusiasts to a valuable platform attracting businesses, governments, and global users.

To address this historic opportunity and proactively guide the healthy development of the ecosystem, the Ethereum Foundation announced a significant expansion and reorganization of its Ecosystem Development (EcoDev) efforts in July of this year. This new strategic blueprint aims to achieve two core goals: maximizing user benefits from Ethereum's core values and maximizing the resilience of Ethereum's technical and social infrastructure.

The strategy is centered around four key areas, working together to shape the future of Ethereum:

• Ecosystem Acceleration: As a growth engine, the Foundation is establishing a new team to accelerate ecosystem development. This includes providing customized guidance to businesses adopting Ethereum, providing comprehensive support to the next generation of developers, accelerating the implementation of user-facing applications, and providing valuable non-financial support to founders, such as mentorship and resource introductions.

• Ecosystem Amplification: To enhance the ecosystem's impact, the Foundation will create rich narrative content through digital studios, connect with communities through strategic events, expand local hubs through the "Ethereum Everywhere" initiative, and leverage automation and AI tools to improve overall operational efficiency, ensuring that the ecosystem's achievements are more widely visible and accessible. Furthermore, the Devcon/nect team will continue to focus on organizing large-scale annual events such as Devcon and Devconnect, but will report directly to the management team rather than being incorporated into the new EcoDev structure.

• Ecosystem Support: To ensure the sustainability of the ecosystem, the Foundation will continue to provide critical support. Its Grant Program (ESP) will further focus on targeted applications and non-financial support. Furthermore, it will support key public goods through strategic funding programs and leverage Launchpad projects to help ecosystem organizations address operational, funding, and governance challenges.

• Long-term ecosystem development: With an eye to the future, the Foundation is committed to removing global obstacles. This includes actively coordinating policies and communicating with global regulators; establishing an institutional secretariat to deepen collaboration with the public sector and non-governmental organizations; and establishing an academic secretariat to promote collaboration with universities, paving the way for the long-term development of Ethereum.

Within this new strategic framework, ETHShanghai 2025 assumes particular significance. It's more than just a technical event; it's a key implementation of the Ethereum Foundation's new EcoDev blueprint. The conference's focus on developer growth, founder success, and ecosystem expansion is a direct response to the "Ecosystem Acceleration" strategy. The conference itself is a large-scale "ecosystem amplification" and "ecosystem support" initiative, translating the Foundation's broader strategy into concrete community connections, technological collaborations, and project incubation.

Core activity section

This year's ETHShanghai 2025 has been designed with three closely connected core sections, running through online and offline, to provide value to participants from different backgrounds.

ETHShanghai 2024

Road to ETHShanghai (July-September)

Prior to the main event, a three-month ETHShanghai Youth Hacker Expedition Program will begin. Comprising online learning, workshops, and hackathons, the program aims to discover and support outstanding young Asian developers, providing them with travel subsidies, event participation opportunities, and a platform for social interaction, lowering the barrier to in-person visits to Shanghai and in-depth discussions with Ethereum core developers.

The total planned budget exceeds 6,000 USDT, and the fund will support at least 30 people, with a maximum of 200 USDT per person. Activities include:

• Online Workshops and Meetups: Organize learning and familiarize yourself with the agenda and hackathon content in advance;

• Hackathon Co-creation Participation: Applicants must participate in the concurrent Hackathon and co-create the award;

• Offline Meetup: Invite high-quality project parties to give presentations and exchanges, helping developers broaden their horizons.

Event Schedule:

• July 2025: The Voyage Plan is launched and online learning begins;

• August 2025: Online casual hackathon and workshop learning, selection of outstanding players to join the voyage program, and opening of guest applications;

• September 2025: Registration for the offline hackathon will begin, the results of the voyage plan will be announced, and an online meetup will be held.

Hackathon (October 18-21)

The four-day offline hackathon, the technical core and innovation engine of the entire event, will be held in Shanghai. Themed "Extending Ethereum, Shaping an Open Future," the competition will encourage developers to propose innovative solutions to Ethereum's most pressing challenges.

This hackathon is open to developers worldwide, with teams of up to five members. Registration will open in September 2025, and a rolling selection process will be used to select approximately 100 top developers (with approximately 30-40 projects) from over 500 applicants to participate in the live competition. This hackathon offers a total prize pool of $20,000 USD, and winning teams will have the opportunity to share or showcase their projects at the main summit on October 22nd, gaining significant industry exposure.

ETHShanghai 2025 Summit (October 22)

Following the intense atmosphere of the hackathon, the one-day summit will culminate the event. The summit is expected to attract over 1,200 registrations, with over 800 offline attendees. The event will bring together over 20 speakers from around the world, as well as over 20 partner communities and technology brands, to promote technical exchange and ecosystem development. Past guest speakers have included industry leaders such as Vitalik Buterin, Joseph Lubin, and Tim Beiko.

The summit will continue the high-quality, technology-oriented style of previous events. The main venue will feature a dedicated "exhibition area" focusing on the latest developments in Ethereum's scaling and modular ecosystem. The exhibition content will focus on three core themes, which are highly consistent with the strategic goals of the Ethereum Foundation:

• Developer Growth: Empowering developers worldwide through skills training, resource support, and community network building, helping them efficiently build and scale innovative applications on Ethereum.

• Ecosystem Amplification: Leveraging community engagement, media partnerships, and cross-regional collaboration, we aim to expand the global influence and reach of outstanding projects and drive the prosperity and development of the Ethereum ecosystem.

• Long-term security and resilience: We are committed to improving the security and stability of the Ethereum network and working with global partners to build a sustainable and resilient open network ecosystem.

This summit is not only a platform for technical exchange, but also an accelerator for the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. Through in-depth collaboration with developers, communities, and institutions around the world, ETHShanghai 2025 will inject strong momentum into the realization of the vision of "Scaling Ethereum, Shaping an Open Future."

The following are the links to the activities:

• Official website: https://ethshanghai.org

• X (Twitter): x.com/EthereumSH

• Luma: https://lu.ma/n11m5knq

Global partners are being recruited

The success of ETHShanghai 2025 is inseparable from the support of the entire ecosystem. We are now actively recruiting partners and sincerely invite organizations and companies committed to advancing the development of Ethereum to participate and join us in building this annual event.

• Sponsor: By providing financial, cutting-edge technology or infrastructure sponsorship, you will gain brand exposure throughout the conference, display opportunities in the core exhibition area, and valuable opportunities to directly interact with thousands of attendees.

• Speaker: Share your latest research, product innovations or practical cases in related fields at the conference.

• Judges and Mentors (Judge/Mentor): Participate in hackathons, provide professional evaluation and guidance to participating teams, help the new generation of innovators grow, and discover potential projects to inject fresh blood into the ecosystem.

ETHShanghai 2025 is not only a technological event, but also a connector and accelerator for the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Every partner joining will inject new vitality and possibilities into the entire ecosystem.

For cooperation intentions, please contact:

• Email: [email protected] , [email protected]

About the Organizer

• Wanxiang Blockchain Lab was established in 2015 by China Wanxiang Holdings Co., Ltd. It brings together experts in the field to conduct research and discussion on technology development, commercial applications, industrial strategy, etc., providing guidance for entrepreneurs, reference for industry development and policy formulation, and promoting the progress and development of blockchain technology in serving the social economy.

• ETHPanda is an Ethereum community composed of Chinese builders. It is committed to connecting Chinese builders with the international Ethereum ecosystem through education, public services, events and technological innovation, and jointly promoting the continued development and innovation of Ethereum.

• PANews is a leading think tank information platform in the field of blockchain and Web3.0, created by traditional media professionals and senior industry professionals.

TinTinLand is a technology community that empowers the next generation of developers. By gathering, cultivating, and delivering developers to various open networks, we jointly define and build the future.