One of the most important people in the Ethereum (ETH) community “Vitalik Buterin” was notably missing from this year’s Consensus 2018 conference. This was not a surprise that his intention to boycott the event was due to a host of reasons. Buterin cited that the cryptocurrency publication “Coindesk” was turning a blind eye to fraudulent scams. According to “Buterin” this was despite the fact that he had issued strong warnings over such activities.

The example was a case of a misrepresentation of OmiseGo with the intention of scamming readers. However even after the apology had been issued by Coindesk, OmiseGo went to join Buterin in agreeing to boycott the event claiming that careless reporting was putting readers of the online publication at risk.

Additionally Buterin also cited problems with the coverage given to EIP 999 by the online publication. Buterin also said that the reporting policies of Coindesk were not to his liking. Another reason Buterin gave for refusing to attend Consensus 2018 was the high price of the tickets being priced between $2,000 and $3,000, arguing that it was ‘rent seeking’.

The just-concluded Consensus 2018 came on the back of high expectations that it would lead to the appreciation in the price of bitcoin (BTC) and other virtual currencies as it had previously done during the annual event. One of those who had been expecting the event to trigger a rally was Fundstrat Global Advisors’ Tom Lee.

This is despite the fact that the event managed to get the attention by having rapper Snoop Dogg perform as well as hosting a yacht party of 1,000 people. In addition the exchange hired Lamborghinis to give an impression of the wealth cryptocurrency investors and traders possess. Instead the price of bitcoin had fallen by around 5% and even briefly touched under $8,000 levels despite Arthur Hayes, an executive of the crypto exchange which had hired the Lamborghinis forecasting that the price of the flagship digital currency would reach $50,000 before the end of the year.