BTC Prague 2023

Day 1 – Arrival at the doorstep

We set off for Prague in the early hours of Wednesday morning and arrived sometime towards evening, just in time to eat dinner and drink our first Czech beer in the city centre. Unfortunately, we missed all the events that took place the day before the conference, i.e. a meeting of European Bitcoiners and Nostr enthusiasts. However, we were full of anticipation for the first day of the conference, which was entirely dedicated to the bitcoin industry and networking between companies and entrepreneurs within the ecosystem.

Day 2 – Industry Day

We took advantage of the Industry Day to meet the various exhibitors, who offered a wide range of products and services at their stands. Among others, the Slovenian company NiceHash, one of the main sponsors of the BTC Prague conference, had its own stand. On the very first day, our expedition participants were able to meet the renowned author and economist, Dr Saifedean Ammous, who was selling and signing books at his stall. Throughout the conference, we had the privilege of helping Dr Ammous sell books and get to know him on a more personal level. In the evening, he also hosted a dinner meeting for members of his website saifedean.com, which was attended by almost 20 European bitcoiners, including three of our crew who helped him at his booth.

Day 3 – first conference day

The second day of the conference was devoted to general events and was attended by a significantly larger number of people than the first. Attendees eagerly awaited the panel featuring the one and only Michael Saylor, founder of Microstrategy, which holds the largest number of bitcoins among publicly known companies. The panel was moderated by his best friend Eric Weis, the man who “turned Saylor orange”. They discussed the reasons for investing in bitcoin for both individuals and corporates. Saylor explained very well why bitcoin is a special financial asset and different from any other investment. He also touched on the differences between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and presented his five-tier investor hierarchy.

Content of the day

In addition to Michael Saylor, the second day of the conference also featured many other bitcoiners, such as Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Blockstream, one of the largest companies in the bitcoin ecosystem, and Robert Breedlove, host of “What is Money?”. The former spoke about innovations within the mining industry, the latter about monetary corruption. Towards the evening, the members of the Slovenian expedition went to dinner in the city centre, where at 22:30 Bitman organised the illumination of the Czech National Bank with a “bit signal”, i.e. a projection of the bitcoin logo. There, a number of bitcoiners gathered, including the aforementioned Dr Ammous, Back and Breedlove, with whom we then went to the second location of Bitman’s street art show, Charles Bridge. There we had the opportunity to discuss more general matters with Dr Ammous, including his possible visit to the Balkans.