This is an opinion editorial by Brandon Green, Chief of Staff at BTC Inc and organizer of the Bitcoin 2023 conference. Bitcoin 2023 and Bitcoin Magazine are operated by BTC Inc.
If you are reading this, congratulations, you have now experienced a true bitcoin bear market. Yes, winter is cold, and no, it may not be warm for a while, but it is in these moments, when the freezing air fills your lungs and the ringing in your ears from the noise of the last two years begins to fade. , which the entire mission comes back into focus and the signal starts to shine a path in front of you again.
It is a winter wonderland indeed. And while it still somehow surprises everyone that winter follows summer, let’s not forget that spring will come too, and it’s better to start preparing properly.
We’ve experienced quite a few of these seasons at Bitcoin Magazine, and it seems like after each cycle, we get a little closer to figuring out how hyperbitcoinization will actually progress, and what we need to do as a community and industry to help us get there. Unfortunately, the mechanism by which we realize this tends to be through pain and harsh lessons.
In 2013 and 2014, we learned “not your keys, not your coins” when the largest Bitcoin exchange (by far) crashed. In 2017 and 2018, we learned how governance should work in a system without defined governance through bitter fork wars. Now, from 2021 to 2023, we are learning how the introduction of credit and debt cycles affects and distorts markets, as well as the various attack vectors introduced by paper bitcoin and IOUs, especially in a system with near-instantaneous settlement. .
In fact, Bitcoin is taking us through a crash course over the last 2,000 years of financial innovation. Anyone who closely follows the trajectory of Bitcoin can rightly consider themselves an expert in monetary theory, among other things.
However, it is not enough to simply learn these lessons.
In the cold of winter, we do not hibernate; we build. It is time to take these lessons from the last decade and apply them to the future of the global financial system. Many of the companies and projects that help us do that are already here, adjusting their offerings and building a solid infrastructure for us to use. Many more have not even been imagined yet.
Bitcoin 2019 was founded four years ago, in the heart of the 2018 bear market, just after the bitter civil war. The goal was “Make Bitcoin fun again”, heal wounds and help create a path forward for this industry.
The industry surrounding Bitcoin grew tremendously over the next four years, and our conference was designed to be an enabling force in that growth. Many of today’s Bitcoin-focused companies were founded at our events. New companies were launched and financed. The companies came together and hired key employees. Business alliances were forged in our meeting rooms. Products and services (and more!) were announced on our stages. You’d be hard-pressed to find a company in our space that wouldn’t change the trajectory of their business by attending or sponsoring our conference.
In 2019, the community was divided and Bitcoin had not been properly prioritized in the larger discourse. In 2023, the community is stronger than ever, but the industry surrounding Bitcoin has gotten downright annoying. The graveyard of companies that are overextended, overleveraged, or outright fraudulent is vast. There are huge gaps in the products and services those companies created, and huge opportunities to create new products and services with the core principles of Bitcoin as their focus. We have a unique opportunity to re-imagine what a financial system with Bitcoin at its center looks like, and the Bitcoin 2023 conference will be our first chance to come together as a community and do just that.
Bitcoin 2023 it will arrive on May 18, 2023. Businesses and builders who attend have the opportunity to be the leaders in shaping the future of our industry for years to come. Ideas generated among attendees and speakers can be the foundation for the next phase of growth in the industry. We will rebuild with Bitcoin at the core of every product and service on the market. And we will show the world that an idea whose time has come cannot be stopped.
This next epoch will be perhaps the most fundamental to the success of Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s “try it” moment is upon us, and the whole world is watching. The future of Bitcoin awaits.
Don’t stay on the sidelines. Enter the arena.
