At this very moment, conference goers who are in town for the Bitcoin 2022 Miami conference are lining up for Sound Money Music Festival for a day of fist pumping and beat drops.
With the business end of the annual crypto event now in the bag, here are some final thoughts and reflections on the historic Bitcoin conference.
Final Thoughts On Bitcoin Miami 2022
You wouldn’t necessarily know it based on the lackluster price action, but all this past week and into the weekend was Bitcoin Week in Miami, centered around the annual BTC conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
Big things were happening for the first ever cryptocurrency. The consensus across the underwhelmed community is always that there should have been bigger announcements. However, there was so much significance beneath the surface of the show.
“A Feature, Not A Bug”
Putting things into perspective, during the show billionaire Peter Thiel said it best. The fact that so many executives, entrepreneurs, and investors came together to gather for a network that has no CEO, no marketing team, or any sort of official entity behind it, is something unprecedented.
Bitcoin is for everyone and that has never been more clear. It is up to the community and network itself to promote the community and network. Without Satoshi to be targeted, any points of failure were eliminated. But without a company bottom line, a board of directors and a big marketing budget, announcements related to Bitcoin are solely left to those who build on or around it.
Bitcoin, Not Shitcoins
Even in a Bitcoin focused event, there was much respect shown to Ethereum by maxis. But there was still a deep disdain for shitcoins wholly. The message came from billionaires like Ricardo Salinas — the third richest man in Mexico.
The message also came from the Uber drivers, hotel concierge, waitresses, and more who all were eager to share they each had a sizable portfolio of shitcoins in the red, but rarely owned any BTC. Everyone knew exactly what Bitcoin was. Meanwhile the variety of names of random altcoins they mentioned read like the island of misfit toys.
BTC Is Freedom
As an American who flew from one US airport to another in just a few hours and didn’t think a thing of it, hearing stories of a 13-year-old North Korean woman sold into sex slavery yet escaped through China are eye-opening and tear-jerking.
In the developed West, money, banking, credit, and debt has worked well for the past several decades or longer. Elsewhere hasn’t been so lucky. Oppressive governments block the flow of information and control citizens through their money. Entire life savings are taken or gone with a snap decision from a central banker without a second thought for what it took an individual to accumulate their wealth.
Surviving Inflation
Central bankers are the bane of society. What started as a valid attempt to drive economic growth, monetary policy has since made regular wages unlivable. It has created an enormous gap in wealth and created inequality globally.
Consumer prices and energy costs are rising, and putting money in savings is a systematic way to see at least half of its value debased within a generation. Bitcoin might not be ready just yet to be the perfect store of value, but if you compared the last ten years the buying power of BTC versus the dollar, the results speak for themselves.
Regulation Is Coming
The curse word was used quite often throughout the conference: regulation. Some see it as the beginning of a battle between cypherpunk ethos and the old ways of traditional finance. Others welcome it with open arms. The truth is the coming regulation will not be easy for Bitcoin and it will face many challenges. It will ultimately be what’s best for the cryptocurrency’s acceptance.
Kevin O’Leary believes that BTC mining will become regulatory friendly in time and even encouraged, able to offset the carbon impact of other industries. What this does suggest is that the industry is so very young in that area as well as so many others.
Crypto Is Still So Early
Bitcoin 2022 had roughly 30,000 attendees and exhibitors. By comparison, San Diego Comic Con has 100,000 more attendees. Consumer Electronics Show brings in around 175,000 pre-pandemic. People are still learning. Adoption is happening. But there is still a long way to go.
Bitcoin is just a teenager. Right now, like any teen it has an attitude, doesn’t listen to authority, and is growing faster than most can keep up. It’s going through a phase of maturing, which comes with a lot of emotion and growing pains. For it to become an adult capable of going off into the world on its own and growing into the global reserve asset it has potential for, it’s going to have to have plenty of stumbles along the way. We all do. And we are all Bitcoin.
Bitcoinist @ Bitcoin 2022 Miami
Bitcoinist will be at Bitcoin 2022 Miami in Miami Beach, FL from April 6th through 10th reporting live from the show floor and related events. Check out exclusive coverage from the world’s largest BTC conference here.
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