HODLween Bitcoin Event in Charlotte, North Carolina – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Chris Alaimo, the multimedia producer and host of Bitcoin Magazine’s Twitter Spaces.
It was a dark and cold night in the middle of the bear market when a group of bitcoiners gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina, to talk about hard money and a better world.
On Friday night, the participants had a meal prepared by Texas Slim and the Gourmet Cavemen, who spoke about the importance of food intelligence and how the quality of food around the world has decreased in value since 1971. They used this equation to justify their position : value equals quality divided by cost. They argued that the quality of food has declined while costs are rising, resulting in food of lower value.
After their moving talk, we had a chance to enjoy the wonderful meal they had prepared, drink and be merry. Bitcoiner’s creative side was on display that night with a chance for people to show off their pumpkin carving skills. Pumpkins depicting Guy Fawkes masks, “₿’s” and even one with the Federal Reserve burning down were on full display. After cleaning up the pumpkins, it was time to have a nightcap and prepare for the talks and party the next night.
The following day started with a fantastic speech from BTC Sessions about the importance of self-sovereignty and the journey towards becoming more independent from the system. He warned everyone not to get overwhelmed by all the Bitcoin terms and jargon for different hardware wallets, CoinJoin implementations and different nodes, but to take one small step to improve your setup and become a little more self-governing.
After the keynote address, the day’s schedule split into two different tracts: one with various lectures and the other with workshops.
Energetic emcee Michael had various costume changes between sessions: a McDonald’s manager, Jason “Going Parabolic” Williams, everyone’s favorite “my star will continue to rise” and a few others. He did a great job during the event.
One of the talks I saw was Dan Finley’s “What is Inflation?” This was about being in bitcoin for a few years, having a basic understanding of macroeconomics and the crazy time-stealing that happened with all the money printing in recent years. I can say that his short talk on inflation was one of the best I have ever heard.
Another talk I enjoyed was on bitcoin mining and the electric grid by Justin Orkney. He talked about his 10-year journey in the energy industry and what it’s like trying to orange pill energy suppliers and contractors who help deliver energy to everyone’s homes. Orkney spoke about the problems with today’s energy grid and solutions that Bitcoin provides.
Jon Gordon of Crowd Health talked about the bloat in the health insurance industry and the massive corruption that reinforced Texas Slim’s idea that value is quality divided by cost. The quality of the healthcare system has declined sharply and the costs have only increased.
After lunch I was able to go to the “Run Bitcoin: Bitcoin Nodes And The Lightning Network” talk by Andy LeRoy from Exponential Layers who gave a talk on Bitcoin Core, mempool and the Lightning Network. We then had a demonstration on setting up nodes and channels. He did a demonstration on liquidity using discs and string. It was heartening to see many senior individuals who were curious to learn about all the intricacies of Bitcoin and Lightning in this workshop. Many good questions were asked.
The last workshop was “Obscure Bitcoin: Buying Privately” with Mike Palmer and Shawn Flowers. It started with Palmer talking about Azte.co and buying a bitcoin voucher with cash, Cash App, Strike, Venmo or a credit card. I had heard about Azte.co and seen things on Bitcoin Twitter, but the personal demo was helpful and showed how this is a great option to buy bitcoin in a private way. Blomster followed up by explaining other ways to privately buy bitcoin using RoboSats and Bisq.
One of the last calls was from Guy and Jeff Swann. They had a good conversation about bitcoin and how it changes the power dynamics of money peacefully, instead of coercively and time stealing. Bitcoin is freedom of entry and removes the possibility of money being defaced, unlike the fiat system.
It was time to open the beers and uncork the wine bottles as the day ended with a live talk about “Toxic Happy Hour” with Pubby and Anders.
I couldn’t make it to the party at the end, but I heard it was a great time with costumes by Craig Wright in an orange jumpsuit, with performances by “Jerome Powell” and “Satoshi Nakamoto.”
All in all, it was a great bear market Bitcoin event! I am grateful to Jacob Parrish, Liz Parrish and the Bitcoin Charlotte meetup for planning and hosting. I hope to be able to make it next year when the bull market subsides and hopefully we will have more die-hard Bitcoiners in our ranks.
This is a guest post by Chris Alaimo. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
