A five-day residential hacker house at ETHDenver 2025 — built so DeFi developers had somewhere to actually build, in the most competitive week of the Ethereum calendar.
As part of Guava's broader INK/Kraken ecosystem engagement, Guava produced the INK Hacker House Denver during ETHDenver 2025 — a flagship immersive, multi-day residential and working space for developers. The format was designed to accelerate INK ecosystem development by bringing DeFi builders together in a collaborative, focused environment.
This activation served as the Denver companion to the INK DevJam Bangkok event produced in November 2024, establishing INK as a serial supporter of developer communities across multiple geographies.
Hacker houses are one of the highest-ROI developer engagement formats in Web3 — the immersive environment produces projects and relationships that persist long after the event ends.
| Event name | INK Hacker House Denver (House of Ink) |
|---|---|
| Client | Inkubator / INK — Kraken ecosystem |
| Conference | ETHDenver 2025 |
| Dates | February 22–26, 2025 |
| Venue | Hyatt Centric Denver, 15th floor · 1776 Champa St, Denver, CO |
| Format | Hacker house — multi-day residential with workshops, mentorship, and demo day |
| Target audience | DeFi builders, INK ecosystem developers, L2 innovators |
| Related event | INK DevJam Bangkok 2024 (November 2024) |
| Producer | Guava · hello@growwithguava.com |
ETHDenver is one of the most competitive weeks in the Ethereum event calendar. Venues are booked months in advance, and attention is fragmented across dozens of competing activations. INK's strategic goal was clear: establish itself as a serious, builder-first L2 protocol — not just a conference booth presence, but a home base where developers could build on INK, learn from mentors, and form lasting community ties.
The challenge for Guava was to execute a premium, multi-day residential hackathon in a market where venues for this format disappear 10–12 weeks before the conference, while delivering a structured programme that maximised developer output and ecosystem growth.
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
| Builder retention | Participants who remain active in INK's ecosystem post-event |
| Project submissions | Target: 10+ impactful projects built on INK's tools |
| Community growth | Increased participation and engagement in INK's developer communities |
| Event reach | Social impressions, RSVPs, and ecosystem partnership growth |
Hacker houses are among the highest-ROI developer engagement formats in Web3. The immersive residential environment accelerates trust, collaboration, and project development in ways no single-day conference activation can match. The INK Hacker House demonstrated that multi-day programming — anchored by structured workshops and culminating in a formal demo day — produces teams with genuine ecosystem buy-in, not just hackathon participants.
Guava's ability to execute both a flagship DevJam in Bangkok and a hacker house in Denver for INK within the same engagement cycle demonstrates strong multi-format production capability and deep familiarity with the Web3 event landscape. The INK partnership is a strong template for how Guava can serve Layer 2 protocols seeking to build developer ecosystems across multiple geographies.
The INK partnership is a template for how Guava can serve L2 protocols building developer ecosystems across geographies — from Bangkok to Denver and beyond.
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