5 Lessons I Learned About Bitcoin Amsterdam – Bitcoin Magazine

garretschoenbergOctober 21, 2022

This is an editorial by Federico Rivi, freelance 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 the iconic city.

For a long time, the European Bitcoin community wanted a comprehensive event that addressed Bitcoin without scaring newcomers. Bitcoin-only events with talks and panels accessible to less technical and non-expert audiences are missing in Europe and Bitcoin Amsterdam is the first to address this.

Amsterdam is a symbol of European freedom. Soft drugs are tolerated and sex workers legalized. For this reason, the Dutch capital is a target for tourists from all over the continent. An ideal place to talk about tools steeped in libertarian culture.

Here are five lessons we learned from Bitcoin Amsterdam.

1. Lightning Network: The Future Is Already Here

It is often pointed out that the Lightning Network is still experimental. Indeed, the protocol has only been in operation for his four years, and the amount of development that characterizes it is typical of a technology in its evolutionary stage, but currently Lightning is performing well for its intended purpose. It can be said that there are

In Bitcoin Amsterdam, you could buy everything from food, drinks, alcohol and gadgets with Bitcoin via Lightning. Merchants were provided with Lightning Wallets by IBEX Mercado, the payment sponsor of the conference, giving everyone the option to pay in Euros or Sat. Many participants used Zeus, one of his most popular Lightning wallets, to connect their smartphones to Lightning nodes. Others used Blue Wallet, Mun Wallet, Satoshi or Phoenix wallets. As a result, in his three days of the conference, about 4,000 transactions totaled 1.56 bitcoins (or 156.8 million satoshi) bought and sold on sats.

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It had zero glitches. Lightning payments worked just as fast as those made by card. Also, physical card enthusiasts were given prepaid cards with satoshis at the entrance to pay via contactless NFC.

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Participating in speeches and panel discussions helped me identify patterns. Bitcoin has long been used as a tool of freedom. Freedom of payment and speech, freedom from debt spirals, freedom from the influence of misinformation and oppressive regimes.

2. Bitcoin offers payments and freedom of speech

WikiLeaks was the first major organization to accept Bitcoin for donations in 2011. This is the website where Australian journalist Julian Assange has revealed, among thousands of other documents, war crimes committed by US forces in Iraq. Sadly notorious in this respect are videos of American soldiers blatantly killing civilians. Today Assange specifically faces extradition to the United States after years of media thievery, bogus trials and inhumane detention.

After the video’s release, major payment networks such as Visa, Mastercad and PayPal refused service to WikiLeaks, making Bitcoin the immediate alternative.

At Bitcoin Amsterdam, Julian’s wife Stella Assange said:

“Bitcoin is trying to use cryptography to fight censorship in a way very similar to how WikiLeaks did. Julian is a great pioneer and has changed the face of journalism. was a cypherpunk, a cryptographer, and understood that mainstream newsrooms had no idea how to protect their sources on the Internet.”

3. Bitcoin will be freed from debt spirals

In his talk, Greg Foss explained how the modern economy is inherently fraudulent. To make it sustainable, he said, global GDP must grow by 12% a year. By not growing at that rate, we are forced to take on more debt, which drives up interest rates and makes for an even higher rate of growth needed. Spiral is a real Ponzi scheme and Bitcoin is the way to get rid of it.

4. Bitcoin will be freed from the effects of misinformation

Panel “Bitcoin Media Issues,” “Bitcoin is not in short supply because it is inseparable from the cryptocurrency,” said Jemima Kelly, a Financial Times columnist known for her many anti-bitcoin articles. rice field. Features: Monero, for example, is more private. Both claims have been disputed in Bitcoin Magazine. The first is a recent rebuttal to Kelly’s article, and the second is her 2020 rebuttal by Giacomo Her Zucco.

Luckily Bitcoin doesn’t depend on what is written about it. It is not bothered by outside propaganda such as environmentalist concerns. Due to its centralized nature, unlike other cryptocurrencies that need to appeal to public opinion in order to thrive, Bitcoin ignores his FUD in the mainstream media, ignores the background noise, and operates one at a time. Move forward block by block.