Europe

Tales From Europe: Eurozone Crisis Shows The Argument For Bitcoin

10/08/2022 by Idelto Editor

The very thing suppressing bitcoin’s price in the short term is exactly what can make it so valuable in the long term.

This is an opinion editorial by Dan Ashmore, financial analyst, journalist and contributor to Bitcoin Magazine.

Europe

Within financial and macroeconomic circles, it can sometimes feel like the USA is the only country in the world. Inflation data is accepted as the CPI reading in the U.S. The stock market is the S&P 500. The currency is the ever-dominant dollar.

On this note, you don’t need me to tell you that the market environment right now in the U.S. is abject. Inflation is printing 40-year highs, the Federal Reserve is yo-yoing between hawkish and super-hawkish while sentiment is free-falling.

However, looking at all this mayhem as a European, something jumps out. While it’s jarring to see how bad things are in the U.S., what is even more terrifying is that it’s worse in Europe. It feels like the likelihood of a crisis is increasing by the day — that is to say, if we aren’t in one already. And taking a holistic view, it sums up why Bitcoin could offer a solution for the future.

Eurozone

Last week, $1 became more valuable than €1 for the first time in history. With Americans struggling to grapple with 9.1% inflation, at least their dollars are appreciating against euros. And while this is bad news for U.S. exports, a weakening euro and strengthening dollar causes very real problems for Europeans — and also correlates with a weakening of many emerging economies’ currencies.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Perhaps a more illustrative display of the dollar’s strength is that of the DXY Index, which measures the value of the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies (this basket does also include the euro). The DXY has been on an absolute surge this year, as the graph below shows.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Why Is The Dollar So Strong?

In times of uncertainty, investors dump risk-on assets and flee to safety. This means volatile assets see a wave of selling while safe-haven assets such as cash and gold experience inflows. But not all cash is created equal. And in the fiat universe, one currency is the clear king of them all: the U.S. dollar.

Time and time again throughout economic crises, when the economy wobbles and investors jump risk-off, the dollar appreciates due to its status as the world’s reserve currency. Being the strongest of any fiat money, it thrives amid market turbulence and uncertain times.

Look no further than March of 2020, an extreme example of how uncertainty and fear can suddenly rock markets. It became clear at this time that the COVID pandemic was more impactful than originally thought, the WHO declaring it a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Over the course of a 10-day period, the dollar jumped 8%.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Monetary Debasement

So the dollar has actually been immensely strong in this current period, despite mass debasement — a show of strength typical of recessions.

View the original article to see embedded media.

However, the below graph shows that this dollar strength is only relative to other fiat currencies. When graphed against real goods — gas, eggs, chicken breasts and bread, let’s say — one needs ever increasing numbers of dollars to purchase these goods.

View the original article to see embedded media.

If you’re American, you’re likely aware of the difficulty that this is causing, as wages struggle to keep up with price increases and the standard of living drops across the country. Now imagine being European, with your currency plummeting even further against the dollar, while you are still fighting similar levels of inflation. The below is a great graph from Jeffrey Snider demonstrating that Germans paid 35% more for 9% less imports. That’s a pretty wild statistic highlighting the sheer scale of the movements here and Europe’s plight.

Emerging Economies

How about a country such as Ecuador? I visited it last month, during which protests broke out over a variety of issues, including the cost of living. Transport routes were blocked as food supplies were cut off from cities, with prices rocketing to scarcely believable levels. Five people were killed, fires were set ablaze around the country and millions of dollars worth of damage was caused to an economy already in dire condition — and is likely now facing a long-term blow to the burgeoning tourism industry it had fought so hard to cultivate.

This is scary. People dying, mass unrest, political turmoil — it’s a harrowing reality of the situation that we find ourselves in with inflation tightening its grasp.

Oh, and Ecuador uses the U.S. dollar, following the collapse of their sucre currency in 1999, a victim to the dirty human habit of hyperinflation.

With inflation now approaching double digits in the U.S. and Europe, is it preposterous to imagine scenes like the Ecuadorian protests in these regions soon?

Eurozone’s Worries

But back to Europe. Let us not forget that this is a region which suffered its own monetary crisis less than a decade ago, when there was serious doubt about whether the euro would continue to exist.

As an Irish person, I am well aware of our contributions to that mess. We endured one of the worst banking crises in history. To illustrate this for American readers, the Irish government was forced to nationalize Anglo Irish Bank in 2009 when it was revealed they had €34 billion in losses (in January 2009 dollars — that amounts to $50.5 billion today).

For context, the U.S. economy is 60 times bigger than Ireland’s, a little island in the Atlantic with a population of only 5 million people. Multiplying this bank’s $50.5 billion in losses by 60 gives $3 trillion. Lehman Brothers — who you may have heard of as the poster boys of banking failure — went under with $619 billion in debt, one-fifth of this $3 trillion figure.

Us Irish were bad, but it was worse elsewhere. 5,000 kilometers east of us (or a little over 3,000 miles, for you Americans), Bank of Cyprus customers had 47.5% of any deposits over the insured amount of €100,000 confiscated in what was known as a “bail-in” in order to shore up the banking losses — something that in the context of a bitcoin wallet, would be incomprehensible. Further restrictions were put in place across the country to prevent a mass run on the banks from occurring.

Greece may have been the worst of all, with systemic misreporting of government debt and deficits covering up a quagmire of financial incompetence that ended up plunging the economy into the longest recession of any advanced mixed economy to date.

Throw in Portugal, Italy and Spain and the euro was a currency on its knees, requiring bailout after bailout to keep economies running. As I type this sentence on my keyboard, I’m still paying taxes to clear off the Irish bailout — at €67.5 billion, equivalent to over 40% of our GDP.

But hey, Germany kept us afloat, the most powerful economy in the eurozone pulling up the stragglers and (just about) saving the day. Bailouts, I suppose, did their jobs.

But today it’s different.

What Is Different About 2022?

A common metric to gauge the health of the eurozone is the spread between German and Italian 10-year bonds. Diverging bond yields are a scourge on the eurozone because it eats away at the very concept of a unified currency (for a more in-depth review of this, see this article published by Invezz.com analyst Shivam Kaushik last week). I have plotted this divergence of the Italy versus Germany spread, now at 2.29% after being at parity one year ago.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Further accentuating the difficulties of the eurozone is the rate policy, which is significantly behind the U.S. Federal Reserve regarding interest rate hikes. The 50-bps hike by the European Central Bank (ECB) last week, Europe’s first hike in 11 years, meant that rates are only now out of the negative range — at a fat 0%. And this, in conjunction with the yield divergence above, signals the problem.

A unified currency containing countries like Germany and Italy throws up massive problems when hikes are required to rein in inflation. Countries such as Italy have enormous debt burdens and are already either on the verge of recession, or already mired in one. So, what happens when the ECB raises rates, increasing the interest burden of those countries saddled with bloated debt liabilities? It plunges those economics into an even deeper recession.

On the flipside, not raising rates practically guarantees the inflation crisis getting even worse — which obviously doesn’t suit those countries with healthier balances — say, Germany. Without hiking rates, the plummeting euro and rocketing food prices will just … keep going, I guess.

But with inflation spiraling to the level where the ECB’s hand has been forced, recessions are now staring nations in the face across the continent. But there is a difference this time. Germany is not going to be able — nor willing — to bail out the stragglers. The German inflation and energy crisis makes this a remote possibility at best, meaning that there is nobody to step in to save the day for the next round of Ireland, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy … OK you get my point.

Global Debt

All this mayhem, of course, is accentuated by the debt situation — something which the U.S. is no stranger to. I took a visit to the U.S. debt clock in New York last month, a somber visual tracker of the live debt. At $31.5 trillion, it’s a staggering amount but the only question that really matters is … how will it be repaid?

Well, the only way to do this is to monetize the debt. And what that means is to continue printing to clear it. The U.S. can mint more dollars, as the debt is denominated in the very same currency that it has the ability to print. An unfair agreement, admittedly, but one that guarantees they will be able to pay the debt back. Of course, the trade-off is a debased dollar.

Which again, for countries like Italy, is not an option because of … the euro. You know, they don’t control their own monetary policy, with it being a shared currency and all that.

Fool me once, I’ll bail you out. Fool me twice, I’ll bail your mate out. Fool me three times, and it’s time to raise the white flag on this whole euro thing. Or the expression goes something like that, anyway.

Bitcoin

This takes me right round to that odd orange currency that we all love so much. What is happening in Europe is exactly the reason why Bitcoin’s fundamentals are so salivating as a hedge — but also, ironically, a summary of why it is lagging so much in the current climate.

This is a currency that can’t be debased like the U.S. dollar. This is a currency that has a hard cap of 21 million coins — unlike the euro. This is a currency that can’t be confiscated, unlike Cypriot bank deposits. It is a currency where straggling Greek and Irish economies can’t drag it to the brink, where sovereign (fiat) debt burdens don’t matter.

But right now, in 2022, this is also a nascent technology and an extremely volatile asset. Meaning that as rates get cut and liquidity is pulled out of the economy, it moves like a risk-on asset, dropping violently, despite this pull in liquidity reining in the inflation that so many argue it should hedge against.

So no, bitcoin is not an inflation hedge — and it’s tough to argue otherwise. But the interesting part is when you draw that investment horizon out and assess it amid the wider macroeconomic picture, changing the question to whether it will one day act as that monetary debasement hedge that it fails to be right now.

Most hadn’t even heard of this asset 10 years ago. It didn’t even exist during the Great Financial Crisis. But Satoshi Nakamoto referencing a newspaper headline reporting on one of those colossal European banking failures — “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” — symbolizes just what a currency with a hard cap, outside the control of money printers, bankers, governments and economists can do. It can represent value, and a way to jump off the train should it ever sink (have I mixed up metaphors there?).

The U.S. dollar is actually the most immune of all the fiat currencies. It is the world’s reserve currency and it spikes in times of turbulence. It has none of the problems of the eurozone, nevermind the currencies of emerging markets.

So if you think that the (debasing) dollar presents as an argument for Bitcoin, take a trip to Europe. It’s getting scary … again.

This is a guest post by Dan Ashmore. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

A European Debt Crisis Is Bullish For Bitcoin

05/08/2022 by Idelto Editor

With the current macroeconomic crisis unfolding and many European countries at risk of debt defaults, bitcoin enters the ring as a neutral reserve asset.

This is a transcribed excerpt of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast,” hosted by P and Q. In this episode, they are joined by Brandon Green to talk about how the European debt crisis is bullish for bitcoin.

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Brandon Green: Yeah, there are other things. There are other questions that I’m thinking about. Another one would be, as you’re starting to look at politicians more and more involved in the space one thing that’s gonna be fascinating is like who, who are our real quote unquote friends, right?

It’s easy to come out and support Bitcoin. It’s growing and it’s exploding and you, the politician, can see the dollar signs in signaling for it publicly. It’s another thing when we’re in a bear market and it’s not the sexy thing, and it’s not even popular to be talking about it at the moment. Are they still gonna come out and defend it?

I don’t know. My gut says probably not. I think that maybe you have [Cynthia] Lummis, maybe there’s a couple other ones who like, actually care about Bitcoin, but I would say for the most part, they’re just there to get more votes and figure out how to co-op our movement. I think that’s gonna be another interesting thread.

The biggest thing that I’m paying attention to specifically for Bitcoin is the resolution of the macroeconomic crisis we’ve thrown ourselves into. And this is something that I was talking about a little while ago on the Twitter space. You have a scenario right now where the EU is teetering on dissolving.

There’s no other way to play it. You’ve got really two factions. You have the “PIGS” countries: Portugal, Italy Greece and Spain, Ireland is sometimes thrown in there. They’re all relative importers, like they import more than they export. They are high in debt.

A lot of times these are the countries that basically got bailed out by Super Mario Draghi after the great financial crisis in 2008. If you hadn’t done that, it looked like the EU could have toppled then. And what ended up happening is that the European Central Bank said, “All right, we’ll just buy the debt from all of these Southern European countries and basically become a backstop.”

They’ve continued to do that. The ECB is standing up for the southern countries of the EU and that’s fine — it was fine — because the EU was a net exporter. And so because of that, you still had demand for the currency coming from abroad. With the whole Russia gas crisis where Germany and other countries got cut off from Russian gas, their costs for energy crept up so much that it actually erased their net exports. Now, Germany even, and all these other countries are now net importers as well, which has caused a demand for the euro to cave.

You saw the euro hit parity with the dollar earlier. You’re actually looking at a scenario where the euro is itself weakening. The problem with the ECB is that it has only really one mandate, which is to maintain the stability of the euro. It’s not to protect the entire EU and prevent it from dissolving.

There’s this starting to form these perverse incentives where if they’re gonna protect the euro, that means raising [interest rates]. But if they raise rates and they stop the purchasing of debt from southern countries, which would protect the value of the euro. By doing that, you raise rates, you stop printing money.

Then you run into a scenario where no one’s buying PIGS’ nations’ debt. And at that point, they default on their debts, and if PIGS nations default on their debt — again, this is Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain — you’re running into a problem where they need to renominate in their own currency so that they can actually print their way and inflate their way out of it.

That’s their only choice and that’s starting to happen. The ECB actually raised rates 25 basis points last week. At the same time, you saw Super Mario [Draghi] step down as the prime minister of Italy. You’re seeing some of the machinations of this happen right now.

This is very important to pay attention to. The alternative would be the northern countries; you’ve got Scandinavia plus Germany, which had been the economic powerhouse — I’ll explain why kind of all this matters with Bitcoin — but you have the economic powerhouses that have been these net exporters that are seeing the inflation in the system. And they’re saying, wow, okay. We don’t wanna keep printing all this money. We need to tighten up so that we don’t all see this rampant inflation, to prop up the PIGS nations. If the inflation isn’t curved, if the spending by the government isn’t stopped, then the northern countries will all elect their own populous leaders, similar to how the U.K. Brexited and you’ll see Germany and some of these northern countries exit the EU on the other end.

The reason why this is interesting to me for Bitcoin is because there’s not a lot of solutions for Europe. If that happens, you’re gonna see huge amounts of currencies, basically being minted and printed overnight. A lot of people are not gonna go back to that system of redenominating their debts on a new currency.

That’s also backed by nothing, right? These currencies need to be derived from something and so Bitcoin is a huge answer for that. If that doesn’t happen, the only alternative is for someone like the U.S. to step in and basically do yield curve control for the EU. That is not our mandate. I can tell you that.

And it’s gonna cause us to start printing even more money than we imagine printing for COVID. If we’re having to prop up the entire EU with our federal reserve.

P: And so what would that look like? What do you mean when you say yield curve control of the EU?.

Green: Let me back up. What is yield curve control? Yield curve control is basically your attempt at controlling the interest rates on a bond. And by doing that, you’re actually putting that bonds payout below what the inflation rate is. So anyone who’s purchasing bonds is like, “All right, I don’t wanna hold this bond. I’m losing money in real terms.” Then they sell it. If you sell bonds, you need a buyer. If no one’s buying, then the rates start rising and that causes the debt to be higher. So what the EU does usually is they go in and backstop it and they say, “All right, we will just buy all bonds at this price level and basically control the yield curve control the yield on it.”

They can’t do that anymore. Cuz they printed too much money and there’s inflation and all this kind of stuff. The only person who could really be in a position to do anything about it is [Jerome] Powell and the U.S. Federal Reserve. If the U.S. did that, then you would see just massive printing of the dollar and you would get into the same basic macroeconomic set that got us from 2009 to today, which you’ve seen what bitcoin has done.

So that’s the other case of Bitcoin, like either way you slice this, is incredibly bullish for the price of bitcoin. It’s just, it comes at the expense of stability in somewhere like Europe.

Europe’s Securities Regulator ESMA Seeks to Obtain Crypto Transaction Data

03/08/2022 by Idelto Editor

Europe’s Securities Regulator ESMA Seeks to Obtain Crypto Transactions Data

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is gearing up to implement stricter oversight in regards to crypto-related transactions. The agency is now looking to hire suppliers of trading data, as monitoring major participants in the market falls under its responsibilities.

ESMA Launches Public Procurement for Providers of Crypto Trading Data

The securities watchdog of the European Union, ESMA, is preparing to increase scrutiny on transactions involving cryptocurrencies, a public tender has indicated. On Tuesday, the authority launched a procurement procedure for suppliers of trading data on crypto transactions including spot trades and derivatives, Reuters reported.

The move comes after EU institutions agreed on a draft proposal to comprehensively regulate the digital asset space known as the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) package. While under the legislation smaller companies will be licensed by national regulators, ESMA will be in charge of monitoring larger players in the “Wild West” sector, as some officials have described it. In a notice, the regulator detailed:

The coverage should encompass all major exchanges and crypto assets so that it provides a fair representation of the crypto market landscape.

The report further notes that regulatory bodies around the world use transaction data to identify market abuses, find out who is on each side of a transaction, and look for risky build-ups of positions which could undermine the markets.

ESMA’s announcement emphasized the data should be available daily. The watchdog also wants to have access to order books where it will be able to see spreads and liquidity across exchanges and trading pairs, in both fiat and cryptocurrency. The contract for these services should not be worth more than €100,000 ($101,000).

The MiCA legislation designates the European Securities and Markets Authority as a leading cryptocurrency watchdog in the 27-strong bloc of nations with certain powers greater than those of national regulators. ESMA will also have the responsibility to determine the scope of the law regarding various crypto assets.

Do you think ESMA will be able to thoroughly monitor crypto-related transactions in the European Union? Tell us in the comments section below.

Targeting the US Dollar’s Hegemony: Russia, China, and BRICS Nations Plan to Craft a New International Reserve Currency

24/07/2022 by Idelto Editor

While inflation data in Europe and the U.S. has risen significantly higher last month, Russia and members of the BRICS countries revealed leaders in the five major emerging economies are in the midst of “creating an international reserve currency.” Analysts believe the BRICS reserve currency is meant to rival the U.S. dollar and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) currency.

Vladimir Putin Reveals the Creation of a New International Reserve Currency at the 14th BRICS Summit — Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia Consider Joining BRICS

During the last month, the West has been struggling with red hot inflation and energy prices skyrocketing higher. Politicians in the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. have been trying to blame the economic calamity on a number of things like the Ukraine-Russia war and Covid-19.

Data from last month’s consumer prices in America and Europe have climbed to all-time highs and many analysts say Western countries are in a recession or about to experience one. Meanwhile, at the end of June, members of the BRICS nations met at the 14th BRICS Summit to discuss world affairs.

During the BRICS Summit, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that the five-member economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa plan to issue a “new global reserve currency.”

“The matter of creating the international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries is under review,” Putin said at the time. “We are ready to openly work with all fair partners,” he added. Additionally, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are considering joining the BRICS group. Analysts believe the BRICS move to create a reserve currency is an attempt to undermine the U.S. dollar and the IMF’s SDRs.

“This is a move to address the perceived U.S.-hegemony of the IMF,” the global head of markets at ING, Chris Turner, explained at the end of June. “It will allow BRICS to build their own sphere of influence and unit of currency within that sphere.”

While the news of a reserve currency created by BRICS may be a surprise to some, specific accounts about the member countries countering the U.S. dollar have been reported on for quite some time. At the end of May 2022, a Global Times report noted members were urged to end their dependence on the dollar’s global dominance.

Russian Business Relations and BRICS Countries Intensify — China’s President Xi Jinping Says Countries That ‘Obsess With a Position of Strength’ and ‘Seek Their Own Security at the Expense of Others’ Will Fall

Putin explained the following month that “Contacts between Russian business circles and the business community of the BRICS countries have intensified.” The Russian president further noted that Indian retail chain stores would be hosted in Russia, and Chinese cars and hardware would be imported regularly. Putin’s recent statements and commentary at the BRICS Summit have made people believe the BRICS members are not “just a ‘talk shop’ anymore.”

In addition to South Africa, Russia has also increased foreign aid and has delivered weapons to Sub-Saharan African countries. Furthermore, Putin and other BRICS leaders have been targeting U.S. hegemony and exceptionalism in specific statements published by the media.

At this year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin addressed the crowd with a 70-minute speech and talked about the U.S. ruling the world’s financial system for years. “Nothing lasts forever,” Putin said. “[Americans] think of themselves as exceptional. And if they think they’re exceptional, that means everyone else is second class,” the Russian president told the forum attendees.

Speaking with Russian ambassadors in a biennial speech, Putin said the West was weakening a great deal in terms of economic power. “Domestic socio-economic problems that have become worse in industrialized countries as a result of the (economic) crisis are weakening the dominant role of the so-called historical West,” Putin remarked to the ambassadors. “Be ready for any development of the situation, even for the most unfavorable development.”

Russia and Putin have been saying that the U.S. dominance in the world of finance has been dying for years now. In October 2018, speaking at the Valdai forum, Putin said the U.S. sanctioning specific countries (including Russia) would undermine trust in the U.S. dollar.

The Russian president noted that most of the fallen empires have made the same mistake. “It’s a typical mistake of an empire,” the Russian leader declared at the time. “An empire always thinks that it can allow itself to make some little mistakes, take some extra costs, because its power is such that they don’t mean anything. But the quantity of those costs, those mistakes inevitably grows.” Putin continued:

And the moment comes when it can’t handle them, neither in the security sphere or the economic sphere.

Moreover, in June, Bloomberg published a report about the BRICS Summit and noted that China’s president Xi Jinping suggested that NATO was responsible for antagonizing the Russian Federation. Xi also said that certain countries that bolster exceptionalism will falter by suffering from security vulnerabilities.

“Politicizing, instrumentalizing and weaponizing the world economy using a dominant position in the global financial system to wantonly impose sanctions would only hurt others as well as hurting oneself, leaving people around the world suffering,” Xi detailed. “Those who obsess with a position of strength, expand their military alliance, and seek their own security at the expense of others will only fall into a security conundrum.”

The Financial World Splits in Half: Alternative Payment Rails, Stockpiling Gold, and the Clash of a Robust Dollar and Ruble

The strengthening of the BRICS nations has been going on well before the conflict in Ukraine began. For instance, in 2014, Russia fully developed the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), and later the Mir payment system was launched. That same year, in response to the annexation of Crimea, Russia started to stockpile gold in vast amounts.

China has been hoarding massive amounts of gold as well, as both countries hiked their gold reserve purchases a great deal a few years before the war. Russian banks also joined the China International Payments System (CIPS) making it easier for the two countries to trade. In April last year, China opened its borders to billions of dollars of gold imports, according to a report from Reuters.

Since World War I, the U.S. dollar has been the world’s global reserve currency and America emerged as the largest international creditor. Fast forward to today, and the dollar is booming against a number of other currencies, and the USD is the most robust it has been in an entire generation. The U.S. dollar currency index (DXY) gained over 10% this year and outpaced strong currencies like the Japanese yen.

Just recently, the euro met parity with the dollar, and other currencies like the Indian rupee, Polish zloty, Colombian peso, and the South African rand have faltered against the greenback in recent times. However, the Russian ruble has been a strong competitor to the dollar this year and has been one of the best-performing fiat currencies in 2022.

With inflation soaring and interest rates getting hiked by the Federal Reserve, Kamakshya Trivedi, the co-head of a market research group at Goldman Sachs stressed that it’s been a “pretty tough mix” to deal with. Despite the uncertainty, the analyst at Goldman Sachs thinks the dollar, at least for now, will remain robust. But in comparison to the greenback’s recent spike in value, most of that rise is in the past, Trivedi remarked.

“For now, we still expect the dollar to trade on the front foot,” Trivedi wrote on July 16. “There might be a bit more to go, but probably the largest part of the dollar move may well be behind us.”

What do you think about the BRICS nations creating a new international reserve currency to rival the U.S. dollar and IMF’s SDRs? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The Bitcoin Conference And The Pursuit Of Hyperbitcoinization

08/07/2022 by Idelto Editor

Lower your time preference and get on board with hyperbitcoinization as the Bitcoin Conference goes global.

This is an opinion editorial by Chris Smith, the Events Ticketing Manager for BTC Inc. Disclaimer: BTC Inc. is the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine and the Bitcoin Conference.

The Bitcoin Conference is an annual tradition, a week-long extravaganza and a true celebration of freedom. The conference not only serves the bitcoin community but all who value freedom, individual sovereignty and the pursuit of hyperbitcoinization. With an event of this magnitude, there are thousands of hours poured into the product along the way toward the end goal. But, with the end goal being hyperbitcoinization, what exactly does that mean? According to the Bitcoin Magazine glossary, the definition is:

Hyperbitcoinization: The inflection point at which bitcoin becomes the world’s preferred medium of exchange.

With that understood, there is no hyperbitcoinization without the whole world being involved.

This historical event requires a reach to every continent, every nation, every language and every creed. With that goal set, the conference must go global and start reaching those with the shared vision of a hyperbitcoinized world.
Thus, the spark of Bitcoin Amsterdam.

Bitcoin Amsterdam is going to make history in Europe, October 12-14, 2022. This will be a monumental event uplifting the trek of bitcoin to all nations and adoption to all people. With the magic that the team behind Bitcoin 2022 has brought in the past, the aim is to bring this same energy to the European stage with the goal of “No region left behind.”

Hyperbitcoinization is not just an end goal, but a journey that is taking place right now. As bitcoin continues its world tour, the conference hopes to be alongside it every step of the way. Learn more about it, get involved and come join us in Miami and Amsterdam this year.

The Bitcoin Conference; Past Lessons And Looking Forward

In April of this year, the Bitcoin 2022 Conference took place in Miami, Florida where 26,000 Bitcoiners gathered to learn, teach and celebrate bitcoin. This was the largest gathering of Bitcoiners the world had seen to date. For a week straight, a wave of orange engulfed the city of Miami.

Bitcoin 2022 – The LARGEST Bitcoin Event In History!

As we think about the future of the Bitcoin Conference, it is important to focus on three things:

What it has been in the past.
What it has taught us.
What it will be in the future.

Throughout this past cycle, the Bitcoin Conference has served as the largest in-person platform for bitcoin and the industry that has sprung up around it. It’s been a place where Bitcoiners, ranging from curious to convicted, can meet, learn, teach, grab a drink and maybe a bite to eat.

A popular location to eat for the plebs at Miami 2022 was a food hall called Lincoln Eatery which accepted sats for payment via Lightning and on-chain. Spots like these are great for gatherings, meetups and enjoying the community. This also encourages other restaurants in Miami to accept bitcoin and it drives business; capitalism at its finest. Make sure you stop by the Lincoln Eatery next year and enjoy the ease of paying for food with bitcoin.

The Bitcoin Conference is the best annual event for networking in the bitcoin industry as a whole. The majority of attendees are players in the space and are actively looking for opportunities to collaborate. As long as you put yourself out there, you’ll meet amazing people who are interested in what you are doing.

A lot of the magic behind the week includes amazing satellite events hosted by sponsors and other members of the community. Most satellite events are structured around this conference and have been a great way for companies to make a name for themselves. The conference also offers a “Pitch Day” which takes place on the first day, Industry Day. It serves as a great place for larger players to provide investment opportunities to smaller bitcoin companies.

Another unique feature of Bitcoin 2022 was giving attendees the opportunity to sign a 9’ x 12’ edition of the Declaration of Monetary Independence (“DoMI”). I worked with the three co-authors Mark Maraia, Mike Hobart, Ulric Pattillo and the rest of the #DoMI crew to bring this experience to Miami. Initially, gathering signatures came slowly, but by the end of the conference, it was difficult to find space to sign your name. DoMI represents a very important aspect of the conference and our movement. Those who signed were essentially stating “I trust math more than I trust central bankers.”

Left (Chris Smith) Right (Ulric Pattillo)

DoMI became one of the many great experiences at Bitcoin 2022 and provided a focal point for thousands of attendees at the conference. It is now a conference staple and I hope to see it return for Bitcoin Amsterdam.

You can also sign it yourself online at declarationofmonetaryindependence.org

What the Conference has taught us has been a few interesting, but deserving, lessons that must be learned and recognized for growth and a bright future.

First, with all Bitcoin conferences, it is important to emphasize bitcoin and only bitcoin, along with of course freedom, self-sovereignty and other tangential aspects — but no other cryptocurrency projects. The sea of cryptocurrencies is truly a distraction from the end goal of hyperbitcoinization. In contrast to the rest, Bitcoin exists as a bright light in a sea of garbage, and only through education and past experience can people come to that conclusion. It is important to emphasize what really matters and not allow distractions to disrupt us from the end goal.

Secondly, it is important to encourage all, even those without similar beliefs, to attend, enjoy and be made to feel welcome. Nothing is worse than a bad first impression, and bitcoin is ultimately for anyone.

Lastly, it is important to not get caught in the limelight. During high price increases and bull markets, bitcoin is all anyone can talk about. But when the bears start winning again, the media will call it “dead.” Stay connected and persist through the volatility and you will come out okay on the other end.

Looking to the future, I know the team is extremely excited about returning back to Miami for Bitcoin 2023, May 18-20. With the Bitcoin Conference spreading across the world, it is important that the flagship event stays in a unique but also accessible area for the strong orange wave that resides in the U.S.

As the conference branches off from Miami and explores new parts of the world, it is important to maintain education as a core concept. An amazing part of the Miami 2022 conference was led by Matt Odell where he facilitated the idea of the “Open Source Stage,” a stage dedicated to Bitcoin open-source projects.

For the most part, it was a high-level overview of the interaction of open-source software and the Bitcoin Core protocol. It also provided very helpful tips for newcomers to learn more about bitcoin from a technical lens. Matt included many amazing speakers and knocked it out of the park with this stage. Core concepts like open-source Bitcoin projects are crucial to give a spotlight to as the world adopts bitcoin.

As the conference continues to grow and expand, hopefully, more hands will touch bitcoin in the process. Learning from past mistakes is important to keep improving in the future, but the future of bitcoin is and has always been bright.

No Region Left Behind; Moving Forward With Europe

As the Bitcoin Conference begins going global, Europe seems to be the first stop on the journey. Bitcoin Magazine, organizers of the world’s largest and longest-running Bitcoin conference, Bitcoin 2022, announced last week, in collaboration with Amsterdam Decentralized and Westergas, the launch of its first European-focused event: Bitcoin Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is going to be an action-packed three days with more “activations” to see than time in the day. The city, for one, is going to be incredible to explore and enjoy. And with a European partner for the event, the presence of European Bitcoiners will be strong.

“While Europe is lagging behind other regions in terms of regulatory and governmental acceptance, demand from ordinary investors and institutions is among the highest in the world,” said David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin Magazine. “What’s more, the continent’s significant Bitcoin developer and innovator community is helping shape the future of the world’s preeminent digital currency — which continues to rise.”

“Europe has been at the forefront of financial and technological innovation for over 500 years, with Amsterdam playing a particularly noteworthy role in the development of modern banking, making it the perfect choice for our first European event,” he continued. “While Europe’s regulators have been so far slow to embrace the potential of Bitcoin, the combination of the continent’s history and its continued high demand for Bitcoin means that our community can give the support, collaboration and direction that European governments are failing to provide, and together pursue our shared goal of hyperbitcoinization.”

Bitcoin Amsterdam is Bitcoin Magazine’s first attempt at bringing the conference out of the United States, and it “aims to galvanize attendees from Europe — one of the world’s most uncertain regulatory environments for Bitcoin — with the message that there can be ‘no region left behind’ in the pursuit of hyperbitcoinization,” said Brandon Green, chief of staff at BTC Inc.

The Netherlands is a special place in the Bitcoin universe, as one of the oldest and most deep-rooted Bitcoin cultures in the whole world. It was the host of one of the first major bitcoin conferences ever, the Bitcoin 2014 Conference. Since block rewards were 25 BTC, Amsterdam has had its hands all over bitcoin and it only seemed right to return in fashion.

Bitcoin and Amsterdam just make sense.

The speakers for the event are going to be predominantly European based, with universal staples sprinkled throughout the agenda. Many European bitcoiners and media members will be involved, finally getting a chance to participate in the monumental movement. There may also be a banger concert after, but don’t hold me to it.

Overall, the three-day extravaganza is going to be a must-add when you are filling out your fall calendar. No matter your exposure to bitcoin, if you are looking for a great opportunity to dive into the culture, this is your chance.

To the European Bitcoiners, I have read so many emails and comments about you not being able to get approved for travel to Miami for Bitcoin 2022. It was only right by you all to bring our event to you, so I hope you all are loving the insanely cheap prices right now. GA (general admission) tickets are only €249 during the public pre-sale, which is currently LIVE.

Europe is only a stop in this journey though, and I foresee Asia, Australia or South America as viable next targets. Wherever bitcoin spreads, gatherings will follow. The Bitcoin Conference plans to be at the cornerstone of this movement and truly spread hyperbitcoinization. Lower your time preference and get involved with the long-term mission.

How Can I Get Involved In The Bitcoin Community And The Bitcoin Conference?

With enough talk about how great it is, it’s also important to direct people to the right avenues so they can plug themselves into the community. Assuming you at least know how to buy some bitcoin — and if you don’t, you should take the 21 Days of Bitcoin course — here are some thoughts on how to go about involving yourself in the community and the annual conference.

Join a local meetup. Before we even talk about the conference, it’s important to nail down the basics first. And the first step is to join a local bitcoin meetup. If you go to meetup.com, you can type in your city and find the nearest meetup. Do not be discouraged if you live outside of the U.S., give it a search as I know of many other meetups around the world.

Self-custody your bitcoin. It is the most important step in protecting your stack. For a great guide, here is BTC Sessions, “Trezor Model T – How To Use A Bitcoin Hardware Wallet.” Ben is great, so make sure you check out his other tutorials as well.

Have conversations. Encourage discourse and talk about bitcoin with your peers. Learning from others and challenging each other’s thoughts and ideas only improve your understanding of bitcoin in the long term.

Something that goes hand-in-hand with this is a famous Chinese proverb: “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”

Engage in self-education. Self-education is important, especially for Bitcoiners. There are many great authors, podcasts, and teachers in the space. Take advantage of this.

Work in the bitcoin space. Of course, you never have to work in the bitcoin space. Many great Bitcoiners work outside of the space and still manage to stay involved. But, working with like-minded individuals in pursuit of a similar goal or path as you cannot be understated in its rewards. And as Bitcoiners, we all want to see bitcoin succeed. Many job opportunities exist all over the space.

If you’re interested, check out b./tc/jobs for new openings. Another great website is Bitcoiner Jobs.

Attend the conference. The most important part to engage in the conference is actually getting a ticket! Pre-sale tickets are live for Bitcoin 2023. It is always better to get these on the front end as most conferences do price increases to drive FOMO and demand.

Check out satellite events. The Bitcoin Conference does a great job at highlighting satellite events going on in Miami in what is referred to as “Bitcoin Week.” Here is where most of your schedule planning will occur outside of the conference agenda hours you wish to attend.

Get involved. There is also a “Get Involved” page where you can participate in multiple activations including volunteering, enrolling in hackathons, becoming an affiliate or hosting a satellite event yourself!

Give back. Lastly, as events like this arise, it is important to allow proper space to give back to those less fortunate. “Giving Back” was a project that coincided with the “Built With Bitcoin Foundation.” The Built With Bitcoin Foundation is, “a humanitarian organization devoted to creating equitable opportunity by providing clean water, access to quality education, sustainable farming and humanitarian support — all powered by Bitcoin …”

Final Thoughts

As bitcoin marches on, it is of the utmost importance that members of the bitcoin community continue meeting in person, face to face and celebrating the freedom that all who participate in bitcoin receive. Conferences are only one way to do this. Try and find a way to interact with the bitcoin community on a daily basis. This community is truly a group of critical thinkers, hard workers and flat-out winners.

When we look at the recent contagion that has hit the market, which companies have been the ones performing the best? The ones that stuck to the game plan, did not deviate or get distracted, stayed moral and focused on bitcoin and bitcoin only.

Bitcoin is the key to defeating the plague that has inhabited this earth — fiat.

Lower your time-preference and get on board with hyperbitcoinization or get out of the way.

This is a guest post by Chris Smith. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.