big announcements about bitcoin in Miami conference
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| big announcements about bitcoin |
last week the bitcoin conference took place in Miami it featured some of the top crypto personalities in the space and attracted an audience of over 25 000 people per day now I was lucky enough to be part of this crowd of spectators and what I saw was more significant than any crypto news headline could possibly hope to capture that's why today I'm going to tell you about my experience at the bitcoin conference I'll go over some of the most important moments of the event and what they could mean for the crypto market.
I know you can't wait to hear me talk about this crypto spectacle but going any further without a disclaimer would be unacceptable I'm not a financial advisor so I don't deal with financial hypotheticals I just talk about crypto in a way that's entertaining and educational if you're looking for the former contact a financial advisor preferably someone respectable now a warm welcome to any newcomers in the crowd.
now back then altcoins were just barely becoming a thing and there were next to no crypto companies around as such most of the attendees were die-hard cypherpunks who were crypto to the core after the bitcoin foundation non-profit was founded by Gavin Andreessen in 2012 the annual bitcoin conference transitioned from being a kind of grassroots gathering to more of a corporate style event this was especially apparent during the bitcoin conference in 2014 in Amsterdam which featured personnel from crypto exchanges blockchain analytics companies and even used stablecoin issuer circle today the bitcoin conference is corporate in every sense of the word and for the last three years it has been organized by BTC inc a crypto media company founded in 2014.
which owns bitcoin magazine this is why many of the moderators at the bitcoin conference were employees of bitcoin magazine and why the full event was live-streamed by and can be found on the bitcoin magazine youtube channel fun fact bitcoin magazine was actually co-founded by Ethereum creator vitalik butter in 2012 and he presented Ethereum for the first time at a different bitcoin conference in Miami in 2014 now as many of you will know last year's bitcoin conference also took place in Miami and it made the history books because it's where Salvadoran president Najib Bucheli announced that El Salvador would become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
as far as I can tell this reselection is a side effect of Miami's geographical location its theoretically enjoyable climate and the complete absence of pandemic restrictions in the state of Florida itself Miami mayor Francis Suarez is also insanely pro-crypto so much so that he revealed a crypto bull statue at the venue on the first day of the event now for context there's a bronze bull statue on wall street which was created in 1989 to represent the resilience of the American people but has since become a symbol of well-making money now Francis explained in a follow-up interview that the Miami bull is meant to symbolize a quote metamorphosis of the old economy to the new economy Francis also said the Miami bull is a part of the city's own push to become the capital of the crypto world and this is also what it says on the official Miami bull website.
now unfortunately I didn't make it in time for the Miami bull reveal and neither did Salvador and president Najib Bucheli Najib was expected to make big announcements at the bitcoin conference but had to bail at the last minute because of an ongoing conflict with a series of criminal gangs in his country as for me I missed out on the Miami bull reveal mainly because I didn't buy the pricey industry pass that gave attendees access to the first day of the event which was of course geared towards institutions instead I settled for the slightly less pricey general admission pass that gave me access to the second and third days.
I'll start with a few other highlights from industry day which I watched live via bitcoin magazine while on route to Miami the first highlight was the opening statements made by Miami mayor Francis Suarez besides hinting that he plans on running for president next year Francis laid out his vision for quote bitcoin America 2024 which consists of three pillars one get pro-crypto candidates elected two integrate BTC into society as much as possible and three unleash BTC's macro power as an inflation hedge now Francis didn't really explain.
how he hopes to achieve these points and I honestly believe that this was partially a practice pitch for his upcoming political platform the second industry day highlight was the keynote speech by Canadian businessman and multi-millionaire Kevin O'Leary this is because Kevin said that the institutions haven't really started investing in crypto yet and this has mainly to do with the lack of regulatory clarity that's slowly but surely being addressed by pro-crypto politicians like Cynthia Lummus Kevin also issued crypto warnings related to the sec and is oriented asset managers like BlackRock regarding the sec Kevin fears that the bitcoin mining industry might have serious issues becoming carbon neutral under the sec's new rules.
because it could make the purchase of carbon offsets irrelevant to carbon-neutral calculations as for ESG Kevin took the environmental angle but if you read my article about cryptocurrency you'll know that asset managers are concerned that they can't govern bitcoin like a corporation and seem to be making moves to try and change this and then came the actual first day of the bitcoin conference at least for regular ticket holders like me.
which is odd given that the cash app apparently allowed for BTC withdrawals via lightning already cache app will also push to make bitcoin as user friendly as possible and is willing to help other crypto companies with their own crypto accessibility given that the cash app has over 35 million monthly active users this is a pretty big deal I'll also quickly point out that they were one of the biggest sponsors of the conference itself now the second highlight of the first actual day of the event was former block stream CSO Samson moe's presentation about the adoption of bitcoin by nation-states.
if you watched my recent video about the countries that could be next to make BTC legal tender you'll recall that Samson left Blockstream to encourage other countries to follow el Salvador's lead while none of the three countries I mentioned in that video made any big bitcoin announcements as part of Samson's presentation three other countries did ish now these three countries were Honduras Portugal and Mexico but there's a catch in all three cases Honduras bitcoin adoption is currently limited to a special economic zone of the island of Roatan which is controlled by a corporation called Prospero where BTC is legal tender for all intents and purposes Portugal's bitcoin adoption is currently limited to the autonomous Portuguese island of Madeira where BTC transactions of any kind won't be taxed.
it has already signed an agreement to provide this infrastructure for el Salvador's upcoming bitcoin city and speaking of bitcoin infrastructure in el Salvador the third highlight of the first actual day of the event was zap inc and strike CEO jack malus's presentation now for those who don't know president Najeeb bukeli announced that El Salvador would be making BTC legal tender as part of jack's presentation at last year's bitcoin conference as you can imagine the expectations here were pretty damn high but jack's big reveal was somewhat underwhelming this time that's because his headline announcement was that strike had partnered with e-commerce platform Shopify for BTC payments on the lightning network now don't get me wrong this is a significant milestone because Shopify is one of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world and operates in almost 200 countries.
it's just not nearly as epic as a BTC legal tender announcement other highlights from the actual first day of the event include the crazy keynote speech by PayPal co-founder peter thiel the panel discussion about bitcoin and politics featuring Andrew yang joe Jorgensen Allen Farrington and Glenn Greenwald the keynote speech by Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas and the bitcoin is freedom panel.
when it first began back then it was hosted by Gavin Andreessen the famous bitcoin developer and bitcoin foundation founder who I mentioned earlier the moderator of this annual state of bitcoin discussion explained that they're going to be quote reintroducing the annual state of bitcoin which presumably means it will also be a part of future bitcoin conferences the annual state of bitcoin itself is significant because it goes over bitcoin related issues like minor centralization and privacy and what technologies are being developed to solve them the discussion was a tad technical but the main takeaway is that bitcoin's top developers are hyper-aware of the issues.
bitcoin is facing and tangible solutions are in the works for all of them I'll leave a link to the full discussion in the description if you're interested now other highlights from the actual second day of the event include the epic emceeing by comedian jp sears the fireside chat with psychologist Jordan Peterson the fireside chat with senator Cynthia Lummis and the closing keynote speech by galaxy digital CEO mike Novogratz on that note mike seemed to imply that it's a good thing that governments are developing central bank digital currencies which really caught me by surprise given that they're antithetical to bitcoin and the very idea of financial freedom when I re-watched what he said though.
it's not entirely clear this is simply because the bitcoin conference revealed to me that both bitcoin and the wider crypto industry seem to be in the middle of what I can only describe as an identity crisis by this point it's clear that the bitcoin conference has become more of a corporate event and I was hearing that most of the people who attended only came so they could network with other heavyweights in the crypto industry behind the scenes never mind the insanely high cost of attendance at the same time however some speeches and discussions embodied what some would probably call the early days of crypto for example.
I remember one chap got on stage and proclaimed to the world that his mission was to destroy the bank for international settlements now this is awesome but it's also the exact opposite of what other speakers were saying on other stages for example Kevin O'Leary talked about how stable coins can be used to ensure us dollar remains dominant in an increasingly digital world and the audience seemed surprisingly supportive I also wasn't a very big fan of the fast pace of the event speakers were given around 15 minutes on average.
I don't think a single panel discussion exceeded an hour it definitely didn't help that the speakers and panelists were actively commenting on their time constraints now this would be understandable was it not for the fact that an entire day had been set aside for concerts and the like and last time I checked people signed up to come and talk about crypto and not to party maybe I missed the memo somewhere I don't know so in sum there was no consistent message or theme and attendees were visibly divided on BTC being a speculative investment vehicle to make lots of fiats or BTC becoming hard money like gold that can will and even should be used as currency for what it's worth there is clearly a common goal and that's the adoption of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in all its forms this supposed identity crisis is just part of the process of figuring out what bitcoin will eventually be or rather.
how it will be seen by the average person in the short to a medium-term, not all the existing interpretations are particularly appealing but I reckon a diversity of opinion is needed now more than ever for the free discussion of what it means to adopt bitcoin and cryptocurrency is ultimately what will give us the answer one thing's for sure however and that's that nobody wants central bank digital currencies now you can find out how the banks plan on convincing you to use them.
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