Oh there are absolutely big smart money players who were very disappointed in the NYC event, as well as some middling holders who, while I might not call them true believers, have been stalwart and steadfast holders, advocates, and in some degree contributors who were sufficiently off-put to change their allocations. I know this with top-tier probability rather than with observational certainty.
The real loss is that if the event has been better planned, more suitably advertised, and the content better curated, it could have been a watershed event in the development of Monero, as a software project, as a currency, as a protection of human rights, and as community. I hope that the next NYC Monero event will be better planned, further in advance, with better venue stability, a wider range of speakers, more dialogue, more topics, better food, and a 2013 Barolo (which, according to advance reports, is going to be an absolutely legendary vintage). Such an event has the potential, through Monero, of changing the world significantly for the better. A bigger after party would be nice too.
I think it would be good to organize Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sao Paolo, Frankfurt, Paris, London events as well, focusing on centers of fintech, broadly distributed.
Hmm. Barolo futures may be a correlated asset.
Disappointment does not mean turning away... that is a difference. And people are right to be disappointed to 100%. But if the had to change their allocations because of the happening... that likely also means that they had put too much into it anyways. Also what you are sayin is just the negative side of that night, with the probability of turning away people ( depending on the subject ) you also attract new people that might have been looking for sth that focuses on the tech before $$$$, don't forget many of the code distributors did not come for the money, but because the project is interesting to them.
Does not mean we should not learn from what happened. Also keep in mind that these last weeks are only snippets in the time this project will be going forward, probably fluffygate will become a side-note sooner as you expect. Look @ Eth, how rarely a much bigger scale event, like the DAO is event brought up or even cared about nowadays. From my social media range i can tell you... rarely, even though that event brought ETC along.