Ethereum Conference Attendees Urged to Test for Coronavirus

Published at: March 11, 2020

On March 11, the co-founder of decentralized login service provider TorusLabs, Zhen Yu Yong (Zen), tweeted that he had been diagnosed with coronavirus COVID-2019.

Zen urged people who may have been in contact with him during the ETHLondon hackathon held from Feb. 28 until March 1, or the Ethereum Community Conference (ECC) held from March 3 to March 5 in Paris, to take “extra precautions and/or get tested.”

ECC exempt from French ban on large indoor gatherings

The coronavirus threat has impacted several major cryptocurrency conferences in recent weeks, with the Paris Blockchain Week 2020 recently being postponed until Dec. 9 after France instituted a ban on large indoor gatherings from the end of February. However, the ECC was exempt from the ban as it had less than 5,000 attendees.

The coronavirus also impacted the London blockchain week, which saw numerous empty seats, and presentations originally scheduled to take place on stage hastily reorganized as live-streaming webinars.

Public fears surrounding the spread of the disease also significantly impacted the turnout for CryptoCompare’s Digital Asset Summit in London yesterday.

Coronavirus disrupts crypto conferences

On March 2, the Hong Kong Blockchain Week 2020 announced that it has rescheduled for Sep. 28 to Sep. 30, after postponing at the end of January. The announcement came one month after the Hong Kong Token2049 conference was rescheduled for October.

Italy’s upcoming EDCON was canceled on Feb. 22, and South Korea’s Nitron Summit 2020 also postponed at the start of February.

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