TL;DR: The first cryptocurrency gathering of its kind for Australia, the Bitcoin Cash City Conference in the resort village of Townsville is off and running, nearly completing its first full day as of this writing. Guests were treated to a VIP dinner the evening before, encounters with reptiles, and even a few featured talks about peer-to-peer electronic cash and its future.

Bitcoin Cash City Day 1

The major difference for Bitcoin Cash City Conference attendees is the organizers’ tone. That’s probably the first thing enthusiasts notice about gatherings of this sort, the general vibe. Veteran conference-goers often laugh under their breath at the fact nearly every interaction they have in getting to, arriving, and interacting with a crypto conference setting is devoid, almost completely, of, well, cryptocurrency.

It might read like a small oversight, but those working to bring about adoption to the real world immediately notice, and that jeweler’s eye is the case in a big way for Bitcoin Cash City Conference organizers Hayden Otto and Noel Lovisa. Otto is a well-known international advocate for BCH, and his public record is replete with working on merchant adoption in particular. Lovisa is less out front comparatively, but no less passionate about bringing BCH to a much broader audience.

The combination has made the Bitcoin Cash City Conference a unique experience by nearly every crypto conference standard. Attendees are not only encouraged to pay for their entrance tickets in BCH, they were also prompted to book flights with BCH-friendly travel agencies, airlines. The same goes for hotels and transportation. No stone left unturned. Come to this conference, and you’re going to experience crypto … not just talk about it.

Brilliant!

Documentarian Calvin Tran was amazed after landing in Townsville, Australia, tweeting, “My cab takes bitcoin cash, brilliant!” And on the anecdotes came about similar experiences: food, haircuts, clothing, etc., all offered for BCH. The night prior to the conference opening, for example, VIPs were treated to a sparkling BCH-paid-for dinner at the Reef HQ Great Barrier Reef Aquarium as ocean life swam around.

The following morning gave way to Day 1 of the conference proper, 4 September. On the agenda were the usual welcomes by organizers followed by two packed sessions of lectures with titles such as Building the Bitcoin Cash City, Ten Years Since Genesis (Bitcoin Cash), and Forging Chain Metal-A Vision for Bitcoin Cash Software Development. “It was awesome so far,” Electron Cash developer Jonald Fyookball told CoinSpice. “Tonight I’ll be talking about Cash Fusion there.”

During developer Gabriel Cardona’s State of Bitcoin Cash 2019 talk, he announced, “The only reason why BTC has value today is because of its original promise.” He gave a passionate overview of the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem, touching on a favorite Cardona theme, SLP tokens. “Tokens don’t compete with cash,” he stressed. “Tokens complement cash.” Highlighting Fyookball’s projects such as Cash Shuffle and Cash Fusion, Cardona also emphasized, “Privacy is a basic human right.”

Coinbase developer Josh Ellithorpe picked up where Cardona left off, delivering his own Privacy of Wallets lecture. Ellithorpe quoted government whistleblower Edward Snowden, “The most important thing Bitcoin is missing right now is privacy.” Ellithorpe pounded home the point, insisting, “Wallets don’t always respect your privacy” and can potentially leak a user’s location, for example. Furthermore, “Blockchain analysis companies build graphs tracking the change of addresses,” suggesting full node wallets run over TOR appear to be the most private. “Censorship resistance needs to extend to our wallets,” he told attendees.

And that’s not even mentioning the afternoon session, which included discussions by Justin Bons, Joshua Green & Doug McCollough, Chris Pacia, Tony Hockings, and a panel with Hayden Otto, Amaury Séchet, Dr. Paul Chandler, Gabriel Cardona, and Josh Ellithorpe to end Day 1.

*Corentin Mercier contributed quotes to this story.

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.

CONTINUE THE SPICE and check out our piping hot VIDEOS. Our podcast, The CoinSpice Podcast, has amazing guests. Follow CoinSpice on Twitter. Join our Telegram feed to make sure you never miss a post. Drop some BCH at the merch shop — we’ve got some spicy shirts for men and women. Don’t forget to help spread the word about CoinSpice on social media.

DYOR: CoinSpice is your home for just spicy crypto things. We’re not affiliated with any cryptocurrency project or token. Each published piece is intended for information purposes only, not investment advice and not in the hope of impacting speculative markets. There are plenty of trading sites and coin-specific advocacy journals out there, we’re neither. CoinSpice strives for rigorous accuracy in our reporting. Information presented here is contingent usually on a host of factors, and the ecosystem moves fast — prices change, projects change, and at warp speed. Do your own research.