NFT Paris 2025 Review: An Amazing Event, But Onboarding Normies? We’ve Got Work to Do

NFT Paris 2025 brought community and innovation to life, but onboarding struggles show Web3 still has a long way to go for mass adoption.

This year, for the first time, I had the pleasure of attending the NFT Paris 2025 [1], which took place at La Grande Halle de la Villette (obviously in Paris) from 13 to 14 February. With 20,000 attendees expected, 150 booths, presentations from 400 speakers, and over 200 side events, the event promised to be huge — and I was right in the middle of it all.

Having attended several crypto conferences before but never visiting NFT Paris, my expectations were high. While I have no particular relation to the NFT game (I am more of a DeFi guy), I was curious to explore the event and the different NFT communities. It was really entertaining as the community aspect behind the NFTs is really recognizable in real life and brings the people together. For example, Pudgy Penguins [2] had set up a kind of Igloo in which only Pudgy Penguin NFT holders could enter and get goodies. A cool idea. But NFT Paris wasn’t just about NFTs (even though the name says so)—it also featured talks on Real World Assets (RWAs), Bitcoin Ordinals, and AI. The panels on tokenization and RWAs were particularly appealing to me as I love this topic and work in this field, with heavyweight speakers from Stellar Foundation, VanEck, Société Générale, and more. The booths were stunning (and packed with goodies and goddamn I love those goodies), but as always, the highlight was connecting with web3 friends, builders, and like-minded people. These conversations are where you feel the pulse of the ecosystem and learn more about the current challenges and trends.

Positive Key Takeaway: Progress and Innovation

Development in web3 is alive and well—especially around tokenization. It’s exciting to see this concept gaining more and more traction. After years of uncertainty around that topic, you can see the interest increase; primarily fuelled by the appetite of big financial institutions. This is definitely a trend that is here to stay in my opinion. One standout moment for me was learning about BitcoinOS’s [3] implementation of ZK-Proofs on Bitcoin. I had no idea that was even possible—it left me genuinely impressed. The builders that were there “by accident” as they won their booth spot were incredibly nice and introduced me in detail to the topic (and offered me a T-shirt, thank you again). And that’s what these conferences are about as well: Learning about new projects and following their development. Another point to mention is the marketing genius of Rekt [4]! Their branding flooded the event as they just gave out cans of flavoured water that you could scan to get tokens—a masterclass in crypto marketing and a showoff of how simple it can be to make people interested in your project. A standout moment of onboarding in contrast to what comes next.

The Onboarding Problem: A Missed Opportunity

Now for a less positive takeaway: Onboarding new people into web3 still has a long way to go. Let me share a personal experience with you. I attended an NFT Paris side event with my girlfriend and two friends—none of whom have any connection to web3. I thought an NFT-themed vernissage would be an ideal introduction to NFTs and web3, it has the perfect balance between real-life experience with a web3 touch. Especially in the context of NFTs, an art gallery should be perfect. The event promised free NFTs via QR code minting—a perfect first experience (or so I thought).

What actually happened, after I explained to them that you simply have to scan the QR code with your wallet, then mint your NFT, and it stays in your wallet forever:

1. I scanned the QR code with my multichain wallet—only to discover it didn’t support the Etherlink [5] blockchain used for minting.

2. I switched to Coinbase Wallet which they then recommended to me (luckily already installed) and scanned again. This time the wallet connected to the dApp—but when I tried minting, I got an error: "You need to be whitelisted.". So I had to go look for somebody working at the art gallery to get me whitelisted.

3. By then, my friends had lost interest halfway through the experience. The process was too cumbersome for something they didn’t value much anyway—a free NFT.

   
   

And honestly? I don’t blame them. If I weren’t already into web3, this unhandy process would’ve turned me off too. This experience reinforced my opinion: onboarding needs to be seamless. Web3 apps must prioritize user experience so that even someone unfamiliar with crypto can interact without friction. Until we fix this issue, onboarding "normies" will remain one of web3’s biggest challenges. This is a relatively logical conclusion since we already know from the current Internet that if a process is not straightforward, user retention is extremely reduced. We are used to convenience and simplicity and a perfect web3 experience has to provide that as well.

Final Thoughts: A Great Event Highlighting Trends and Challenges

To be clear, this one frustrating experience doesn’t define NFT Paris as a whole—I had an amazing time reconnecting with friends in the space and the NFT Paris was fun. Compared to other crypto conferences I have been to, it was less formal, and it revolved more around fun, good vibes, and community-building - a welcomed change to industry-focused conferences like the Tokenization Summit. In any case, the conference has made me even more excited about Paris Blockchain Week 2025, for which I'm still hoping to get tickets (fingers crossed guys, an in-depth review will follow).

The NFT Paris was a good reminder of how far we have come and how far we still have to go to make web3 truly accessible to everyone. In today’s world, people expect seamless user experiences. The friction we (admittedly often) encounter in web3 is a major barrier to adoption—and events like NFT Paris should be leading the charge in showcasing how easy and rewarding web3 can be. If we want mass adoption, we need dApps and infrastructure that offer flawless first impressions for new users. Otherwise, many people’s only interaction with crypto will remain limited to centralized exchanges—a bad representation of what web3 truly stands for. The NFT Paris reminded me why I love this space—but also why we still have work to do and maybe on what we should focus more.

Have you been to NFT Paris or another crypto conference? Share your experiences! And who of you am I going to see at the Paris Blockchain Week this year?

If you are interested in these topics, feel free to follow me! I write articles about DeFi, crypto, and anything related. If you want to talk to me or collaborate on an article you can also reach out on X/Twitter or Bluesky, my username there is @Maxo1st as well.

Cheers, xx

References:

[1] https://www.nftparis.xyz/

[2] https://www.pudgypenguins.com/

[3] https://www.bitcoinos.build/

[4] https://www.rektguy.com/

[5] https://www.etherlink.com/