Manifesto

ETHTokyo exists, because Tokyo is one of the few places where the contradictions of Ethereum can be held without immediately resolving them.

Protocol and culture. Finance and art. Public goods and private ambition. Cypherpunk sovereignty and institutional legitimacy. Technological acceleration and sustainable continuity.

This is the terrain.

ETHTokyo is not defined by whether we run a hackathon, a conference, a meetup, a dinner, a research salon, or a public gathering. Formats change. Ethereum does not need another event for the sake of an event. What remains is our reason.

We are here to coordinate the people building credible, open, programmable systems from Tokyo.

Ethereum has crossed an important threshold. It is no longer merely a speculative frontier or an experiment in alternative money. The stack is becoming real: programmable accounts, cheaper data, rollups, zero-knowledge proofs, privacy-preserving systems, autonomous agents, decentralized infrastructure, and new forms of digital organization are all converging.

The question is no longer whether Ethereum can exist.

The question is what kind of world it will make possible.

ETHTokyo exists to raise that question.

Our thesis

ETHTokyo is not defined by a single format, venue, or hackathon. It is a coordination layer for Ethereum in Tokyo: a place where builders, researchers, artists, operators, founders, institutions, and independent weirdos can gather around a shared civilizational question.

What should a credible, open, programmable society look like from Tokyo?

Why now?

Ethereum is no longer just a speculative frontier. The protocol stack has matured. Account abstraction, cheaper data, rollups, privacy research, restaking, ZK, hardware verification, and agentic execution are converging into a new design space.

The question is no longer whether Ethereum can technically exist. Rather, we're here to ask: what kind of real-world order will it make possible?

Our principles

  1. Permissionlessness over gatekeeping — Anyone should be able to build, fork, join, contribute, exit, and create without asking institutional permission.
  2. Commons over capture — Ethereum only matters if it sustains infrastructure, knowledge, norms, and commons that outlive individual cycles.
  3. Intent over interface — Ethereum should expand human agency first and foremost beyond wallet UX, dashboards, and manual transaction clicking.
  4. Verification over trust - Crypto must escape self-referential token games; serious systems should make claims checkable, whether they concern code, assets, compute, or institutional infrastructure. The physical reality is our substrate.
  5. Privacy over surveillance - Privacy is not a niche feature or a criminal suspicion; it is a precondition for freedom, security, experimentation, and dignity.
  6. Pluralism over monoculture — Ethereum's strength comes from many clients, L2s, apps, cultures, teams, and scenes, not one official path.
  7. Localization over globalization — ETHTokyo aims to connect global Ethereum to Tokyo's actual cultural, institutional, and underground reality rather than importing generic conference aesthetics.

What ETHTokyo does

ETHTokyo convenes, curates, and coordinates. We are not here to civilize the edge until it becomes harmless. We are here to protect the edge from becoming isolated, illegible, or wasted.

ETHTokyo acts as the coordination layer, not a factional machine, sponsor vehicle, or narrative cartel.

Closing call

Tokyo has always been a city of contradiction; hypermodern and ancient, orderly and chaotic, corporate and underground, disciplined and playful. That contradiction is the essential to a florishing human life. ETHTokyo exists to make that contradiction productive for Ethereum.