The 2nd Tulum Crypto Fest will take place in May 2023. Here are some impressions from this rather special crypto event.

Teresa Castagnino, co-founder of Tulum Crypto Fest, will be our guest at the next Rootstock Rooftop Party in Playa del Carmen. This festival will be held for the second time in our neighbouring town of Tulum, which some call “the capital of Instagram”, due to the many people who like to show off their wealth and beauty in this Caribbean paradise.

Teresa is also Forbes Magazine’s representative in Latin America. The picture above does not show her (she is on the flyer below this article), but a shaman who opened last year’s fest with a traditional Mayan ceremony.

Another co-founder is Immanuel Cape (see picture above), who also started Tulum Crypto Club, which takes place in a beach club every Wednesday. It was the nucleus from which Tulum Crypto Fest developed.

In 2022, Tulum Crypto Fest was hosted by the Papaya Playa Project, which has developed from a simple backpackers hostel into a fancy beach resort. Some talks had the ocean and the beach as their backdrop, like this interview with Pablo Gonzalez, the co-founder of Mexico’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Bitso.

Most of the talks and panels took place in the Papaya Playa Theatre, an organic wooden structure that can hold up to 300 people.

In 2022, Tulum Crypto Fest didn’t have many famous “crypto celebrities” on the speaker list, it’s focus was clearly on community-building, reaching out to new people and creating a unique atmosphere.

Some workshops took place outdoors in the jungle, something I have not experienced at any other conference.

These unique circumstances probably led to the festival’s motto “Where nature meets technology”. In 2023, Tulum Crypto Fest will even be celebrated in the middle of the jungle, a thirty-minute drive from the main road. To emphasise their connection with nature, the founders created the term “Natureverse” – a nice variation of the overhyped “Metaverse”.

Crypto art and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) were an important part of last year’s festival. Here we see artist Alejandro Glatt at a ceremony with his signature papaya artworks.

Each day at Tulum Crypto Fest starts with a yoga class, which is typical for Tulum, a place that offers all kinds of spiritual activities.

The 2023 edition of the Tulum Crypto Fest will take place in Xiel Tun Park, which has some beautiful cenotes. These are freshwater-filled caves with impressive stalactites and stalagmites. Cenotes are only found on the Yucatan Peninsula in south-eastern Mexico. This year all talks will be given inside these spectacular natural wonders, which will make Tulum Crypto Fest even more special.

By Aaron Koenig – pictures by Pako Yanez / Park Xiel Tun.