DevConnect & Solana Breakpoint: Reflections by GetBlock CEO Vasily Rudomanov

After twenty-odd conferences in an unrelenting year, two events stand out: DevConnect in Buenos Aires and Solana Breakpoint in Singapore. They represent, in microcosm, the two faces of blockchain today - one gazing toward tomorrow's possibilities, the other building today's businesses.

DevConnect: Building the Future

DevConnect distinguishes itself through breadth. Unlike DevCon's conference format, DevConnect operates as an ecosystem fair, attracting venture capitalists alongside researchers, entrepreneurs alongside students. The technical focus remains strong, but the diversity is striking.

What impressed me most was the sheer volume of innovation: DeFi protocols, real-world asset platforms, prediction markets, staking mechanisms, privacy tools. Nine in ten will never reach viable unit economics - some defy obvious market demand - yet builders persist through bull and bear markets alike. Keeping pace with this innovation remains essential to understanding where the market moves.

The gathering pulsed with idealism. Free student tickets brought energy and youth, and discussions stretched beyond today's challenges to sketch tomorrow's contours. 

The prevailing themes - artificial intelligence, privacy, security, zero-knowledge proofs in this particular order - have finally escaped marketing's gravitational pull. Privacy and user experience no longer sit at opposite ends of a spectrum; developers are finding ways to deliver both through flexible, programmable implementations.

Yet Argentina offered a sobering counterpoint. In Latin America, crypto adoption stems not from technological fascination but economic necessity. Staggering inflation drives people toward Bitcoin and dollar-pegged stablecoins. They use blockchain rails to preserve savings and avoid the eight to ten percent fees that cross-border remittances otherwise extract.

Those solving immediate financial problems care little for zero-knowledge proofs or artificial intelligence. 

But this is precisely how genuine adoption begins. 

I discussed these realities at a panel hosted by EPAM and the Blockchain Professionals Community, alongside representatives from 1inch and Wirex.

For inspiration and vision, DevConnect remains unmatched.

Solana Breakpoint: Building for Today

When I first visited Abu Dhabi six years ago, the city resembled one vast construction site. Europeans often dismissed it as Dubai's perpetual runner-up, forever playing catch-up to its flashier neighbor. This visit proved how mistaken that view was.

The two cities are fundamentally different. Where Dubai is the flamboyant teenager - trying to impress, reaching skyward, sprawling messily - Abu Dhabi is the settled professional in his forties, husband and father. The capital exudes old money. For those seeking institutional adoption in crypto, these are precisely the institutions that matter.

The event itself reflected this maturity. Local authorities and regulators extended rare hospitality. Held at the Etihad Arena, the venue was packed, yet the atmosphere conveyed something more significant: this gathering mattered to Solana and its ecosystem. Anatoly Yakovenko moved through the crowd like a peer rather than a figurehead, speaking with strangers without pretense. Members of Superteam dispersed throughout, spreading their message organically.

Solana Breakpoint presented a revealing portrait of the industry. This was a showcase of functioning businesses generating actual revenue. The organizers walked a delicate line balancing substance with spectacle, genuine innovation with the tiresome procession of influencers and business development representatives that Emirates-style conferences have made routine.

They struck that balance. Technical presentations ran alongside business panels and intimate conversations. Everyone found something worthwhile.

Breakpoint demonstrated that innovation and adoption need not compete. Every technical upgrade, every new feature serves the concrete business needs of specific application categories. The ecosystem has moved past vaporware.

Two observations about Solana's current position merit attention. 

First, it represents the third generation of traditional finance challengers. Bitcoin broke the monopoly on stores of value and mediums of exchange. Ethereum replaced basic financial primitives - deposits through DeFi, national currencies through stablecoins, governance through DAOs.

Solana aims to replace the rest. 

It remains the only blockchain, from my vantage point, with credible aspirations to match traditional finance across nearly every dimension. Its speed, efficiency, usability, and developer experience all point toward this ambition.

Second, Solana maintains unusual openness. The announcement of an XRP bridge exemplified this. If something exists in Web3, Solana either has it or is working to integrate it. For perhaps the first time at a major conference, the diversity of functioning applications with growing user bases and revenue streams rendered the usual narrative-chasing almost beside the point. Maybe, only cross-border settlement and capital flows deserved special spotlights. 

Problems remain. 

Too many announcements competed for attention, causing substantive developments to go unnoticed. Teams rush to board the bull market train, and it shows. Some applications remain expensive toys. The Solana phone finally shipped with full functionality at $500, yet I met no one who had purchased it. At last year's Solana Crossroads in Istanbul, it existed only as a presentation.

Still, three things are clear.

Solana is here to stay. 

It aims to change not merely Web3 but how people transact. 

And it intends to onboard everyone.

What This Means for GetBlock

Both conferences reinforced my conviction in GetBlock's direction. I cannot say which aligned more closely with our focus - a fortunate position to be honest.

For Ethereum's community, we offer the largest suite of EVM blockchains (over fifty and growing), America's fastest endpoints for BSC - still the dominant EVM-compatible Layer - region-specific deployment even for shared node clients, BDN-enabled transaction routing, and more.

For Solana's builders, we recently launched our premium suite of data fetching and transaction landing solutions: TradeFirst for high-frequency traders, LandFirst for rapid transaction settlement, StreamFirst for data streams, IndexFirst for Solana archival data. 

We offer the lowest latency in Europe and the Middle East, alongside flexible pricing. GetBlock is betting heavily on Solana RPC node infrastructure.

For newcomers and enthusiasts, we provide a generous free tier and startup program. 

For scaling businesses, powerful data clusters and customized infrastructure.

GetBlock serves everyone in Web3. More to come.

Vasily Rudomanov

CEO

December 2025

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