Fear and Loathing at Coingeek 2020

For two days in London, the biggest names and brightest minds of the BSV ecosystem met to discuss the future of Bitcoin.

For many of us, this was the first time we were connecting faces to names (or Twitter handles). Shaking hands with friends and colleagues who we’ve shared ideas, sats, and memes with over the last few years on Twitter and twetch. A cartoon frog avatar turns out to be an industry leader with a clear and exciting vision. A hot anime waifu turns out to be a 50 year old man with a harelip.

Many developers didn’t know what to expect from CoinGeek. While happy to build their products on BSV, not everyone was sold on the BSV blockchain. Were some devs just leveraging CoinGeek’s resources to hang out with their friends in London, or was this truly the chain and the team that they wanted to throw their weight behind?

It was unclear whether we’d get our answer. The cringey personalities were eager to make themselves known.

At the Four Seasons pre-event party, you’d find a creepy older man, with the sloppiness of too many pints and perhaps the cockiness of amphetamines, all too eager to tell you that he’s an important figure in BSV, as he attempts to stroke your shoulder.

Or the coked up psychopath at the after-party screaming “take a picture with me! Don’t you know who I am?!?!” (No one did).

The vibe at the actual event, however had no “dirty old money” associations. The presenters were for the most part young, passionate, and many were sovereign. So sovereign, in fact, that one spoke for 15 minutes and forgot to describe what their product does, instead choosing to focus on torus stones and good vibes (respect, dude).

The venue of Old Billingsgate was very professional. The room was packed wall to wall with over 1,000 people. Jimmy Nguyen did a great, (though sometimes heavy-handed) job of opening and closing the event. He cleanly and effectively introduced speakers, moderated panels, and impressively kept the whole event running exactly on-time.

At the same time, BTC was running a parallel event that could barely fill a short school bus.

One of the most impressive presentations was from Josh Petty of Twetch. Much more than a pay-per-use Twitter clone, Twetch promises to be the interface to Bitcoin. Right now you can not only earn money for your content, a killer feature for the brilliant meme artists currently starving on Twitter, but you can always access your data on the bsv chain, even if you “left” Twetch for some reason (what up Pham). It’s clear twetch is seeing far into the future, however, and that Twetch will extend not only to messaging and payments, but will offer a powerful SDK that allows devs to build on Bitcoin while leveraging Twetch’s network effects. Will twetch become the world stream? The internet of money? I’m excited to see.

Another killer presentation came from Jack Liu, the man behind CambrianSV. Cambrian is a bootcamp that brings the best minds in BSV together to build products and platforms in real time. This isn’t a feel-good conference full of furries and rainbows, but a “nose to the grindstone” workshop where businesses are built. Of particular interest from Jack is Output Capital, which promises to offer startup funding quickly and fairly, with revenue shares that decrease over time and prevent companies from building “stupid moats” to satisfy VC’s.

Unlike similar conferences, not all pitches were made by and directed exclusively to the Bitcoin community. BitPing (formerly uptimeSV) helps (nocoiner) businesses determine if they’re up, by collecting data from devices around the world. I also heard the healthcare presentation was pretty legit but I quickly dipped out of the event to harness the energy of the Rosetta Stone (#powerful).

The high point of the presentation (for me), was George Gilder. A respected economist, George has been consistently right on technological advancement over the years. He understands that Bitcoin ties information and money together at the base layer, and that a new foundation could change the web as we know it. He believes Bitcoin can fix Ponzi money and the porous internet. He’s betting on a better future, one with less ads and walled gardens. A world where people take their data back and new businesses flourish. He’s betting on BSV right now, though it’s important to say he’s heavily support BTC and ETH in the past.

Now, we can’t talk about CoinGeek without mentioning the after-party. It was a little weird. A couple hundred mostly-men were forced to wait in line for the club to open. Once in, we were greeted by dozens of models, a Delorean, and (inexplicably) quite a few little people (who were cool AF, and a couple I am proud to call my friends). Most of the attendees felt a little awkward as they weren’t much into the club scene, but it was harmless enough and most had a good time. I didn’t get any vibes that the entertainment didn’t want to be there, but it was certain they were paid very well to attend.

While talking about parties may seem trivial, it is clear there is a small rift in the BSV community. Some worship Craig, numbergoup, and a hedonistic lifestyle. Others are just happy to have a platform to build generational wealth for their families, regardless of the chain. What is clear is that this group is full of energy and ideas, and Craig + co have provided a platform for these “fuckwits” to build on.

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