SALT
LAKE
CITY
—
“We’re
going
to
need
a
bigger
boat.”
So
said
Barrett,
the
host
of
Solana’s
largest
community-run
coworking
meetup,
after
surveying
his
fast-filling
WeWork
in
Salt
Lake
City
on
Monday.
His
cowboy
boots
clopped
past
rows
of
desks
and
laptops
and
crypto
developers
at
the
seasonal
retreat.
Some
50-odd
out-of-towners
had
already
arrived
and
another
150
were
on
their
way,
putting
his
supply
of
monitors
in
jeopardy
of
proving
too
small.
He
made
the
tough
call:
“Pretty
soon
everyone
with
a
Vision
Pro
is
going
to
have
to
work
from
the
couch.”
For
the
next
three
weeks
the
social
center
of
the
Solana
ecosystem
will
be
Utah.
There’s
NFT
enthusiasts,
market
makers,
crypto-payments
wonks,
validator
operators,
decentralized
governance
philosophers
and
plain-old
degenerates
mingling
and
talking
and
coding
for
Solana.
MtnDAO
has
ballooned
well
past
the
two
dozen
or
so
familiar
faces
that
migrated
to
the
past
four
editions.
It’s
bolstered
this
February
by
sponsorship
funding
from
the
Solana
Foundation
and
a
handful
of
representatives.
That
lent
an
air
of
officiality
to
what
had
called
itself
“Solana’s
most
notorious
hacker
house.”
But
make
no
mistake:
Barrett
still
runs
this
town.
He
literally
owns
the
monitors.
His
people
decide
what
local
restaurant
to
get
catering
from
each
Monday
through
Friday.
At
least
on
the
fourth
floor,
the
WeWork
site
managers
defer
to
him.
He
and
his
co-host
Edgar
Pavlovsky
of
MarginFi
and
their
intern
Anders
will
ultimately
decide
who
wins
mtnDAO.
CoinDesk
will
be
filing
regular
dispatches
from
mtnDAO,
capturing
the
vibes,
the
conversations
and
profiling
the
startups
chasing
the
$150,000
in
prize
money
that
will
go
to
the
best
in
show.