Things are cooking in Prague

This is an opinion editorial by Joachim Buch, Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and contributor to HumanProgress.org and the Mies Institute.

The first thing attendees encountered when entering the venue at BTC Prague’s inaugural conference was the smell: a pungent, new-rubber-type smell that pervaded much of the main stage area. The other was the light – or the absence thereof: it was dark, with giant screens and ceiling neon lights flashing gracefully at regular intervals.

What’s probably imprinted in participants’ memories is the dim, purple haze and the comfortable, white VIP couches at the front (paying for VIP tickets has its advantages!). A large BTC logo hanging above the panelists on the main stage and slowly bubbling lamps created an eerie, somewhat nauseating feeling – as if the entire stage was slowly spinning. As if I wasn’t already tired of my travels, endless conversations and lack of sleep, for which I wholeheartedly blame the many pre, later and post events that take place in Prague’s thriving nightlife.

As I took it all in, I pulled out my notepad and wrote, “The techno waves of my adolescence are calling and they want their atmosphere back.”

The main hall was empty for the first few sessions on all the three days. Terrible, even. where is everybody?

winding roads

expo hall Most of the cool kids seemed to live here; The rest were probably enjoying the morning sun by the riverside in the city of Prague.

Lined with hundreds of bitcoin companies and thousands of participants, the expo hall featured a two-story centerpiece booth, which was occupied by conference organizer SatoshiLabs. It, symbolically, reached all four corners of the space, with each section dedicated to its four business brands, one of which, the Wexel Foundation’s KYC-free, peer-to-peer bitcoin app, was launched during the conference. . Around it, along the sides of a football field-sized hall, were miners, hardware wallet makers, a dozen or so different backup-on-steel products, book publishers, and lots of merchandise and consumables. In fact, there were so many booths hidden behind something else, that after several walkthroughs I Even then Found new companies or conference booths that I hadn’t noticed before. I live and breathe the bitcoin sphere, yet I don’t know half of these companies or their products: bitcoiners are truly prolific, with new products and companies springing up like mushrooms after rain. ) Czech proverb,

By the way, the official language of the convention was that ridiculous and obscure European type of broken English; It was a nice change from an avalanche of otherwise Americanesque Bitcoin dominates the field and bitcoin conference.

What was not unique about the event was that the audience consisted mostly of very fit people in the early days of their lives. Some even brought their wives and children, giving the venue a somewhat family-friendly atmosphere. It’s heartening that self-responsibility in money translates into self-responsibility in other areas as well. In an era of Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro, it should come as little surprise that this message resonates most powerfully among young men.

Somewhere between the venue and the stop at the end of the red metro line, there was a clear transition from the fiat world to the bitcoin world. As I headed to the conference each day, I began to see colorful wristbands, bitcoin-themed clothing, and the kind of fit, confident, and extraordinary clientele that separates us bitcoiners. Upon entering the venue, I closed my Google Pay for Lightning Wallet app as everyone accepted Lightning. Occasionally, a merchant politely asked if I wanted to pay by card or Lightning, but most of the time, they just gave me an invoice. Exchanging monetary energy can be exactly that easy; The gap between the world of bitcoin and the outside world has never felt more stark.

The coffee barista at the Grand El Salvador booth diligently brewed the convention’s best coffee, all day, every day—anyone who had the patience to stand by and watch her carefully brew could be had. then, if you want Purchase Enjoy a coffee from one of the food trucks outside, waiting in line for up to 20 minutes. But the food was great, as well as benches and beanbags to socialize and soak in Prague’s summer heat – until the sultry summer showers pushed thousands of participants inside, bringing everything out of festive proportions The crowd is gone.

Among the many casual meetings and reunions, scheduled or occurring, a few stood out: selfies with an idol, thanking a podcaster or author for their valuable work, connecting in real life with persons or names that were first words, Photos were nothing but voices or profiles

In the middle of the expo hall, I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked back and saw a tall, sleek, dark-haired man of about my age. The face was familiar Very Familiar – but from some other time, some other place. “do you remember me?” My brain worked like an overclocked ASIC to find the solution to this cryptographic puzzle; In the five-second block time required for this type of conversation, I couldn’t get it done. He reminded me that we studied economics together in university, what felt like a lifetime ago; We were on the same study abroad program in the same city but haven’t kept in touch since then. After we graduated he returned there for a few years but now he was back in his native Prague. He told me that he found the broken money, the exorbitant prices absurd. He is a newcomer to bitcoin, having just won a ticket to his first bitcoin event a few months ago.

“I’m learning a lot,” he said.

Two winding paths, united by bitcoin: everyone gets here eventually, in their own way, on their own time. It is a beautiful thing.

the rockstar moment

To fill the sizable main stage, we’ll have to wait for two productions from Michael Saylor. Saylor, who is fast rising to rockstar status in the bitcoin world, gave an absolutely spellbinding speech Lack of privacy on the third day, but the hall was also jammed due to the heated exchange he had with Eric Weiss Tomorrow. The packed room, which had been somewhat empty for the past several seasons, was now so packed with spectators that the air conditioners running at maximum capacity could not keep up. As their specialty “Bitc-OwingAs the hall echoed, Sylar’s words literally took our breath away.

He explained that bitcoin is a morally good thing, it is a moral imperative. Bitcoin and bitcoiners hold a better ideology for which we “don’t need to apologize.”

The tour de force, which was the keynote address, concerned the fall of the US dollar against hard assets. It’s not a revolutionary notion in these circles, but it might be the way Saylor delivered the message: By holding cash, you’re “on the wrong side of the economic war.”

“There is an endless economic war going on all over the world and it has been going on since the beginning and it is still going on. that war is about the redistribution of economic power, and we call it Property,

“No amount of hard work will solve the problem of being on the wrong side of that economic war.”

Technology is more important than hard work; It doesn’t matter how hard you dig or how good you are with a shovel, when the next guy comes along with a digger. This is what Saylor added government policy An order of magnitude more important than technology. Over the time frame of a decade or a century, the gains made from technology – always in competition with the next thing that makes it obsolete – are eroded by the never-ending expansion of wealth at the root of many of society’s problems.

The energy in the room was as high as it had been during the “Satoshi Rockmoto” concert the previous night. This uneasy feeling crept in: “Perhaps your work doesn’t matter as much as the government’s policy.” I cannot escape the dangerous effects of dwindling funds by exaggerating my financial contribution.

The conclusion is abundantly clear to most of the participants that you need to get out – physically as well as financially. Erik Dale, Norwegian influencer and podcast host”bitcoin for breakfast“That’s all he told us inaugural lecture A Day Before: The Week of Conferences, “Perhaps the First Time We’ve Seen a Net Immigration of Bitcoiners” To Europe,” he said. Normally, we Europeans take our “fu money” and walk out of the crumbling museum of bureaucratic and overburdened public Ponzi schemes.

But perhaps we overlooked the bitcoin hub that is Prague – which is home to satoshilabsTo brainsto a The Company Behind the Bitcoin ATM, Martin Kutcher, conference co-founderAt every opportunity the Czechs continue to praise the bitcoin scene: “I see BTC Prague as another Czech project that confirms the importance of the Czech Republic to bitcoin,” he said in a pre-conference interview,

Things are really cooking up in Prague. Perhaps all is not lost for Europe.

This is a guest post by Joachim Buch. The opinions expressed are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.