After Coachella and SXSW, pressure to cancel events mounts following first crypto Coronavirus diagnosis 🚨 This article is 5 years old...
After Coachella and SXSW, pressure to cancel events mounts following first crypto Coronavirus diagnosis
2 min read
Updated: Apr. 25, 2020 at 9:29 am UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
The lethal Coronavirus has seen an unprecedented spread across the globe throughout the past several days and weeks, leading a vast array of major events like Coachella and SXSW to be canceled or postponed, including multiple crypto events.
Now, the crypto industry is seeing its first Coronavirus case, with the Torus Labs founder announcing in a recent tweet thread that he has contracted the virus after attending multiple major Ethereum-related crypto conferences.
This has potentially opened the gates for a flood of new COVID-19 diagnoses within the industry and is leading to mounting pressure for upcoming events to be canceled in an effort to prevent community spreading of the virus.
Global conferences greatly impacted by the rapid spread of Coronavirus
Naturally, the spread of the virus seen over the past several weeks has led multiple prominent blockchain and crypto-related events to be canceled, including Hong Kong Blockchain Week and others.
Earlier this week, it was announced that Bitcoin2020 – a popular conference in San Francisco – is being postponed until Q3 2020.
There are still some global events that have occurred in recent times, including the CryptoCompare Digital Asset Summit in London, which was virtually void of participants despite having a plethora of keynote speeches and panels that were still presented to an empty room – as reported by CryptoSlate.
Multiple major non-crypto events have also been canceled in the past few days, including the highly anticipated South by South West (SXSW) conference and the Coachella music festival.
In the near-term, it is highly probable that all notable upcoming conferences will be canceled or postponed as the virus spread becomes a pandemic, with the risks of catching the virus due to community spreading growing each and every day.
Crypto conference participants at risk of contracting COVID-19 as Torus Labs founder falls ill
In a recent tweet thread, Zhen Yu Yong – the founder of Torus Labs – explained that he has been officially diagnosed with the Coronavirus, shortly after attending the Ethereum Community Conference and ETH London.
I fell ill yesterday and have just been diagnosed with #COVID2019. Everybody who had close contact @EthCC_ or @ETHLondon with me should take extra precautions and/or get tested
— Zhen Yu Yong (Zen) (@zenzhenyu) March 11, 2020
Fortunately, he did note that he is now comfortably settled within an isolated ward, although it remains unclear as to whether or not his condition has changed in the 18 hours since the tweet thread was originally posted.
As the virus continues to spread around to globe, it is highly probable that more conferences and major non-crypto events like SXSW and Coachella will be canceled as the number of infected individuals grows at an unprecedented rate.
