Key Quotes And Ideas From Day One Of The Bitcoin 2021 Conference In Miami

The Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami is well underway. First day: done. Apparently, sadly, production failed and there were thousands of people in line for hours. They missed the first few talks, but we didn’t. Eventually, they got to experience a wild happening of epic proportions full of Bitcoin-related art and activities, though. We didn’t. In general, the organizers catered to and nurtured the community, the most important part of the whole Bitcoin project.

Bullish at #BitcoinMiami #Bitcoin2021 #Bitcoin2021 pic.twitter.com/Z7FX8jPUpw

— SFL Insider (@SFLInsider) June 4, 2021

The Livestream only covered the presentations on the main stage, the Nakamoto Stage. Most of the day, the host was What Bitcoin Did’s Peter McCormack. On YouTube, there were between seven and eight thousand viewers at all times. The chat was inundated with bots pumping their little coins. The music was low-quality techno. All in all, it was a good day for Bitcoin. 

Related Reading | Will The Bitcoin Miami Conference Be A Catalyst For Recovery?

As for the content, there were controversial moments, heartfelt moments, funny moments, great quotes, surprising new stars, and much more. It was boring at times, though. And the spammer’s total takeover of the chat made it impossible to connect with other like-minded individuals. In the virtual realm, the community aspect didn’t work. And the worst thing is, a Bitcoin conference is the worst place to sell those nascent altcoins. It was a waste of time and energy, even if a bot did all the spamming. 

Anyway, let’s get to the specifics. We’ll cover some of these presentations in detail sooner than later. Down here, though, you’ll find the key ideas from Bitcoin 2021’s main talks for the first day.

Mayor Francis Suarez Bitcoin 2021’s opener

The first-ever mayor born in Miami’s key idea was, “The days of a currency being tethered to a central bank are coming to an end.” Hear hear!

Ron Paul, “We Need Monetary Freedom”

• The ex-presidential candidate wants no legal tender laws, “If you don’t like the Dollar, you ought to have the absolute right to use whatever you want for money.”
• “The Federal Reserve is running out of philosophic steam. They have no idea what they’re doing and that’s leading to this chaos.”
• He thinks that politicians and the Fed are going to continue printing money and are not worried about debt. Deficits don’t matter to them.
• “Creating more money is not creating wealth”
• “The monetary issue is important, but liberty is important too. And we can solve our problems if we have our freedom.”
• He had been talking to Bitcoiners and had this to say, “The people here are much better informed than the people in Washington.”

Nick Szabo, “The History Of Money”

This presentation was tremendous and goes pretty well with the first lesson from the Bitcoinist Book Club. He brought a new idea to our attention that seems terribly important, though. 

• “The biggest shortcoming of monetary metals is the cost to validate.“
• “The cost and risks of validating gold caused people to outsource validation in forms such as coins and paper notes.”
• “Trust based validation is the most important improvement Bitcoin is bringing”

BTC price chart on Bitbay | Source: BTC/USDT on TradingView.com

Bitcoin 2021’s Fireside: Michael Saylor And Max Keiser

In a short half-hour, these two delivered a lot of value. Keiser played the funny interviewer and interrupted Saylor when he got preachy, and Saylor did most of the talking. All the quotes are by him.

• Saylor’s main thesis was that traditional investments lost all of their attraction and that, in real life, you can never own anything. Until Bitcoin, that is.
• “For the first time in history, we can grant property rights to 7 billion people”
• “I see bitcoin as the most secure, most reliable, most certain thing in the entire economic universe.”
• “The reason bitcoin is going to win is because of its community’s ethos.“

Jack Dorsey, “Banking The Unbanked”

Square and Twitter’s mastermind said what the audience wanted to hear, “All of the other coins, for me, don’t factor in at all.” They’re focused on making Bitcoin the native currency of the Internet. He also confirmed Square’s plans to produce a hardware wallet of some kind. He said that Square got into Bitcoin so that people will be “able to transact with it every day.” Most importantly, he echoes Bitcoinist’ sentiment about energy concerns, “Miners have to make a profit and getting cheap renewable energy maximizes their profit.” 

In Bitcoin 2021’s most controversial moment so far, activist Laura Loomer confronted Jack Dorsey for talking about liberty while shutting her Twitter account. Even though she has a point, it wasn’t the time of the place for that discussion. That’s not what the paying audience was there for.  

JUST IN – Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey heckled over censorship during an #Bitcoin event.pic.twitter.com/DmebShinG0

— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) June 4, 2021

A seemingly polite MacCormack calmed her down and got her away from the stage before security intervened:

This angle is probably the best representation of what happened with Laura. https://t.co/R5DPM0ZExK

— Peter McCormack (@PeterMcCormack) June 4, 2021

Dorsey replied to her by highlighting Twitter’s Blue Sky project, “It will have none of the restrictions that you see on Twitter. Inspired entirely by Bitcoin, we want to do the same thing for social media.”

Related Reading | MicroStrategy Acquires An Additional $15 Million in Bitcoin

Bitcoin 2021’s Floyd Mayweather Fireside Chat

This was absolutely terrible, why was the champ there? He started slowly, “Everybody in the crypto world is competing with one another”, and suggested that they should work together. Then, he dropped the bomb, “I think another crypto is going to be as big as Bitcoin.” He was booed. With reason. Didn’t he know where he was? Or was he trolling? In any case, he was a fish out of water and completely uninformed. 

Senator Cynthia Lummis and Representative Warren Davidson, “Bringing Bitcoin Innovation Home To America”

These politicians brought the thunder. Bitcoinist already covered their presentation in detail.

Ross Ulbricht’s Recording

The day ended with the Dread Pirate Robert’s dispatch from jail. It was emotional. We’ll have to talk about it some other time, but he said, “Bitcoin is the embodiment of freedom.”

Bitcoin 2021’s stats

So far, Bitcoin 2021’s transmission has more than 270 thousand views on YouTube and more than 47 thousand on Periscope/ Twitter.

Featured Image from Bitcoin 2021 | Charts by TradingView