Five Lessons I Learned Bitcoin Amsterdam – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Federico Rivi, an independent journalist and author of the Bitcoin Train newsletter.
Disclaimer: BTC Inc. is the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin Conference.
Bitcoin Amsterdam was a popular event in a symbolic city.
For a long time, the European Bitcoin community had hoped for an inclusive event that addressed Bitcoin without intimidating newcomers. A Bitcoin event with talks and panels that were not too technical, accessible to a non-expert audience, was missing in Europe, and Bitcoin Amsterdam, for the first time, addressed this.
Amsterdam is the European symbol of freedom: soft drugs are tolerated and sex workers are legalized. For this reason, the Dutch capital is an object of tourism from all over the continent. It’s an ideal choice of venue to talk about a tool steeped in libertarian culture.
Here are five lessons I learned from Bitcoin Amsterdam.
1. The Lightning Network: The future is already here
It is often pointed out that the Lightning Network is still experimental. Admittedly, the protocol has only been in operation for four years, and the amount of development that characterizes it is typical for technologies in an evolutionary phase, but today it can be said that Lightning works well for its intended purpose.
At Bitcoin Amsterdam, it was possible to buy anything in bitcoin – food, drink, alcohol and gadgets – via Lightning. Sellers were provided with the Lightning wallet from IBEX Mercado – the payment sponsor of the conference – so that everyone could choose whether to pay in euros or rate. Many participants used Zeus, one of the most popular Lightning wallets, to connect their smartphone to the Lightning node. Others used Blue Wallet, Muun Wallet, Wallet of Satoshi or Phoenix. The result was that during the three days of the conference, buying and selling in rate reached a total value of 1.56 bitcoins (or 156.8 million satoshis) with almost 4,000 transactions.
This was with zero errors. Instant payments worked as quickly as those made by card. And for physical card lovers, attendees received a prepaid card with satoshis at the entrance, with which they could pay via contactless NFC.
By attending speeches and panels one could see a pattern. Bitcoin has long been used as a tool for freedom: Freedom of payment and freedom of expression, freedom from the spiral of debt, from the effects of misinformation and from oppressive regimes.
2. Bitcoin offers freedom of payment and freedom of speech
The first major organization to accept bitcoin for donations in 2011 was WikiLeaks. This is the site where Australian journalist Julian Assange exposed, among thousands of other documents, war crimes committed by the US military in Iraq. Unfortunately, infamous, in this regard, is a video in which American soldiers openly kill civilians. Today, Assange is concretely facing extradition to the United States after years of mudslinging by the media, false trials and inhumane detention.
After the release of the video, the major payment networks – Visa, Mastercad and PayPal – had refused their service to WikiLeaks and bitcoin had thus become the immediate alternative.
At Bitcoin Amsterdam, Julian’s wife Stella Assange spoke:
“Bitcoin is trying to fight censorship in a very similar way that WikiLeaks did by using cryptography. Julian was an incredible pioneer and changed the way journalism was done. Julian was a cypherpunk, a cryptographer and understood that the mainstream newsrooms had no idea about how to protect their sources when operating on the Internet.”
3. Bitcoin offers freedom from the spiral of debt
In his lecture, Greg Foss explained how modern economics is essentially a fraud. To make it sustainable, he said, world GDP must grow by 12% a year. By not growing at that rate, we are forced to take on more debt and this increases the interest rate, which makes the necessary growth rate even higher. According to Foss, the debt spiral we live in is a real Ponzi scheme and bitcoin is the way to get rid of it.
4. Bitcoin provides freedom from the effects of misinformation
In the panel “Bitcoin’s Media Problem,“ Jemima Kelly – a Financial Times columnist known for publishing numerous articles against Bitcoin – said that “Bitcoin is indistinguishable from crypto, so it’s not small,” and that it cannot be considered the standard because “There are cryptocurrencies with better features: Monero, for example, is more private.” Both claims have been disputed in Bitcoin Magazine – the first recently, in response to an article by Kelly, and the second back in 2020 by Giacomo Zucco.
Fortunately, Bitcoin does not depend on what is written about it. It does not suffer from external propaganda as an environmental concern. Unlike other cryptocurrencies – which, due to their centralized nature, must appeal to public opinion in order to thrive – bitcoin mainstream media ignores the FUD and moves on, one block at a time, ignoring the background noise.
5. Bitcoin provides freedom from oppressive regimes
Finally, at the event, Alex Gladstein interviewed Leopoldo López, leader of the Venezuelan opposition to the communist regime of Nicolás Maduro. López explained,
“Using Bitcoin for many people is a luxury … one choice among many. In places like Venezuela – where the vast majority of the population does not have a bank account and has no access to any alternative – bitcoin is an option that people can use for to access financing and transfer money.
According to data shown below the panel, 10.3% of the Venezuelan population held cryptocurrencies in 2021.
If you find yourself looking to experience the best the Bitcoin community has to offer, consider purchasing tickets to Bitcoin 2023, which will be held in Miami on the 18th-20th. May 2023.
This is a guest post by Federico Rivi. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
