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Controversial And Confrontational Talks From The Bitcoin 2021 Conference

  • June 11, 2021
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This is our final dispatch from the Bitcoin 2021 Conference. We dissected talks from politicians, thought leaders, and more thought leaders. Then, we turned our eye to the ideas of the not-so-famous and found fire. We saved the nutritious content for this last one, of course. These three conferences are all from Day Two. We start with the most wholesome, go to the most toxic, and saved some star power for the last one, a very polite fight between two opposing points of view.

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You’re in for a treat, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s get to the content.

Giving Back To Bitcoin 2021

With Hong Fang, Mike Schmidt, and Ben Price. Host: Matt Odell. 

At the end of this Bitcoin 2021 talk, OKcoin donated $100K to Brink. No strings attached. How did we get there? Let’s read.

  • Hong Fang: This panel was all about supporting developers. OKcoin’s Fang said, “We don’t see it as a donation, we see it as an investment.” Their grants are not string attached and non-exclusive. They want their investment to build a base for a different future. She considers that getting money with strings attached is quite dangerous, “Bitcoin is ultimatelly a community movement.” OKcoin is one of the first exchanges to incorporate the Lightning Network. 
  • Ben Price: If everyone uses open-source software, we can create better software. “If you’re benefiting from Bitcoin you should contribute to the people who help maintain it,” that’s why he created Open Sats. 
  • Mike Schmidt: There’s a difference between where Satoshi left off and what the eight hundred Bitcoin core developers have been making. Currently only a handful of developers, “maybe 30,” are making consistent contributions. His organization, Brink, offers Bitcoin developers fellowship in London and three grants in the US. 

Open Sats is, “a web donation platform where donors can learn, donate, and contribute to Bitcoin Core and related free and open source projects.”

Brink exists, “to strengthen the Bitcoin protocol and network through fundamental research and development, and to support the Bitcoin developer community through funding, education, and mentoring.” 

Toxic Maximalism: A Feature, Not A Bug

With: Dr. Bitcoin MD, Nico ZM, Aleksandar Svetski, and BTC Lerk. Host: Nik Hoffman

One of Bitcoin 2021’s most controversial panels, these people’s opinions divided the community and inspired thought pieces in various media. How fun!

  • Dr. Bitcoin MD: Sh*tcoin if you want, but “don’t get in our way or you’ll be stung by the cyber hornets.” “Bitcoin is rule with no rulers. Play the game or get the f*ck out.”
  • Nico ZM: “Bitcoin is the last bastion of freedom that’s left in the world.” He’s not wrong. “Sound money should be a human right. Don’t settle for anything less.” It should be. “Hyperbitcoinization at all cost.”
  • Aleksandar Svetski: He thinks that toxic maximalists are like the autoimmune system of the network,  “We are the white blood cells.” About Bitcoin, he rightfully thinks, “There’s nothing more pure or nothing more important in the world today.” “Money represents human action” He’s not wrong. “Nikola Tesla developed electricity for Bitcoin.” Ok, he went overboard on that one.
  • BTC Lerk: “If you’re against Bitcoin you’re against freedom.” He’s one of the hosts of the “Simply Bitcoin” show on Youtube. They try to “keep the clickbait” of the altcoin channels, but produce Bitcoin maximalist content. 

Evolution Of Exchanges

With Caitlin Long, Sam Bankman-Fried, and supposedly Ciara Sun. Host: Erik Voorhees

Sadly, Ciara Sun was a no-show in Bitcoin 2021. They substituted her with an eToro representative who didn’t say much. We won’t hold it against him because he probably wasn’t prepared. The battle was between Avanti Bank’s Caitlin Long and FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the premier crypto derivatives exchange.

  • Caitlin Long: She thinks the introduction of crypto-focused banks is a progression over exchanges. Shots fired. The question is, how do you plug this technology into the legacy system without blowing it up? “Stablecoins were invented to face the speed of Bitcoin.” She considers liquidity a nice-to-have but not a necessity. “Satoshi gave us money that isn’t debt.” And here comes the second wave of attacks, “A fool and his leveraged Bitcoin will soon part”. According to Long, a lot of people don’t know that they’re 90% likely to lose money with leverage trading. “Leverage trading is fractional reserve banking.” Boom. 
  • Sam Bankman-Fried: Even with the introduction of DEXs, he thinks there’s increasing consolidation in the Top 5 exchanges. The thing is, the space has been doing so well that shrinking exchanges can still make money and don’t disappear. There’s still a long way to go for DEXes. And here’s his response to Caitlin, according to him, the 100x leverage are never big positions and they don’t move the price. Leverage helped the industry to get to $60K per coin, but he admits it’s also a factor in the drop to $40K per coin. Nevertheless, Bitcoin ended up higher. 

BTCUSDT price chart for 06/10/2021 - TradingView

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

Bitcoin 2021, This Is The End 

An that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. That was our Bitcoin 2021 remote coverage. As we said before, the conference received much criticism, but almost none of it was about the content:

By the way, did you all notice that all the criticism this conference got was directed elsewhere? The large lines for anything, the tribalism, Max Keiser’s baptisms (don’t ask,) the “insensitive” cash is trash selfie dumpster, but not the content. The content was excellent… except Floyd Mayweather’s talk, of course.

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Where does the toxic maximalism talk fit into that list? That’s for you to decide.

There were a lot of great talks we didn’t cover. Head over to Bitcoin Magazine’s YouTube if you still want more.

That’s it for us. We’ll see you in Dubay.

Featured Image from Bitcoin 2021's Twitter | Charts by TradingView
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