On Friday morning, the flashy crypto conference Token2049 Dubai, scheduled for late April, announced that it would not take place until 2027 amid war in the Middle East, according to a statement. On March 6, organizers had told Fortune that the event was taking place as planned, despite a week of escalating conflict in the region.
The conference said that it made the decision due to “ongoing uncertainty in the region and its impact on safety, international travel and logistics”, according to the statement.
Token2049 is not the first event to be canceled amid the violence in the region. Several others, including an entrepreneurship and innovation conference in Dubai and Abu Dhabi called the Megacampus Summit, were also shut down. Sporting events were also canned, most notably after tennis star Daniil Medvedev was stuck in Dubai after a tournament.
After the U.S. and Israel struck Iran on February 28, violence spilled into other parts of the Middle East. A suspected airstrike partially damaged Dubai’s main airport, and four people were injured after missile debris came down on Palm Jumeirah, a Dubai island filled with luxury hotels.
When Token2049 organizers told a Telegram group of its ticket holders on Sunday that the event was going on as planned, someone responded in the chat, “What are you talking about. Iran is still hitting the Dubai airport,” according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
In 2025, over 15,000 people attended the conference, and the organizers called it a “festival-like environment.” Some of the headline speakers slated for this year’s conference were Eric Trump, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.
