5050 Bitcoin for $5 in 2009: Helsinki’s claim to crypto fame

This “Crypto City” usher looks astatine Finland’s crypto culture: The astir notable projects and people, its fiscal infrastructure, which retailers judge crypto, and wherever you tin find blockchain acquisition courses.

City: Helsinki
Country: Finland
Population: 1.55 million 
Established: 1550
Languages: Finnish and Swedish, with English wide spoken

Jump to: Crypto Culture, Where to walk crypto successful Helsinki, Crypto projects and companies, Local crypto controversies, Crypto acquisition and community, Notable crypto figures from Helsinki

Situated connected the Gulf of Finland, Helsinki is the superior of Finland and is arguably the world’s astir bluish metropolis, with 1.5 cardinal radical — 30% of the country’s colonisation — calling the metro country home. Its inhabitants walk wintertime successful a cold, inactive acheronian but bask 11 p.m. sunsets successful summertime.

Helsinki Cathedral astatine sunrise, aft a nighttime of partying. (Elias Ahonen)

Major colonisation centers are nearby, with some Tampere and Turku reachable successful 2 hours via roadworthy oregon rail. There are regular ferry services crossed the Baltic — including to Estonia’s superior of Tallinn, which tin beryllium reached successful 2 hours by sea, and determination are besides plans to nexus the cities via an undersea tunnel. The adjacent Helsinki-Vantaa airdrome is the country’s main planetary gateway and serves arsenic a transportation hub for Asia.

Finland has been ranked the happiest state successful the satellite for six consecutive years by the World Happiness Report. Its income taxation complaint tops retired astatine 56% — 1 of the highest successful the satellite — and the taxation information of each nonmigratory is public. Helsinki played big to the 1952 Summer Olympics. The state joined the European Union successful 1995 and adopted the euro arsenic its currency successful 1999. In 2023, Finland became a subordinate of NATO.

As the capital, Helsinki’s crypto events gully participants from crossed the country, making it the earthy gathering spot for the industry. For that reason, projects and companies from adjacent cities similar Tampere and Turku are besides included here.

The country was archetypal settled astir 5,000 BC arsenic the crystal property retreated. Vikings raided the established settlements, arsenic did Swedish crusaders successful the 10th and 13th centuries. The metropolis was formally established successful 1550 arsenic a Swedish trading post, defended by Suomenlinna (Finland’s fortress), the largest oversea fort successful Europe. Later, nether Russian power arsenic the Grand Duchy of Finland, the emperor moved the superior from Turku to Helsinki, which was person to St. Petersburg. Finland became autarkic successful 1917, aft which it resisted Soviet concern successful the 1940 Winter War.

The Finnish Parliament. (Elias Ahonen)

Crypto Culture

Helsinki’s assertion to crypto fame rests with Martti Malmi, a bundle developer who successful 2009 sold 5,050 Bitcoin (BTC) for a $5.02 PayPal transfer, marking the archetypal clip that Bitcoin was exchanged for fiat currency. It occurred earlier the overmuch better-known May 22, 2010, “Pizza Day,” erstwhile Bitcoin was archetypal utilized to acquisition a carnal good. Eventually, Malmi utilized astir of his Bitcoins to acquisition a workplace successful the metro area. If he’d hung connected to them, they’d beryllium worthy $171 cardinal today. The Bitcoin was utilized to effect an speech called New Liberty Standard, which established the archetypal BTC price of 1,309.03 Bitcoin for $1.

Found the archetypal known bitcoin to USD transaction from my email backups. I sold 5,050 BTC for $5,02 connected 2009-10-12. https://t.co/8XcBmzJljf

— Martti Malmi (@marttimalmi) January 15, 2014

Malmi was successful immoderate ways a merchandise of his environment, with Helsinki recognized arsenic a furniture of method innovation since Nokia began to predominate the cellphone market. In 1991, Linus Torvalds began moving connected what became Linux astatine the University of Helsinki. It is besides location to galore video crippled companies, with section steadfast Rovio’s Angry Birds achieving planetary fame successful 2009. Helsinki is besides the location of Aave founder Stani Kulechov, though helium has moved overseas with the company.

In 2019, a then-staunchly Bitcoin maximalist radical called Konsensus organized the translation of Saifedean Ammous’ 2018 publication The Bitcoin Standard into Finnish, and aboriginal besides translated The Little Bitcoin Book by The Bitcoin Collective. According to 1 member, the enactment has since go much accepting of different cryptocurrencies and blockchain usage cases.

The “crypto community” successful Helsinki and Finland is somewhat disorganized and divided, with galore enthusiasts being funny successful 1 facet — beryllium it Bitcoin, NFTs, oregon Web3 — without embracing the whole, and frankincense having fewer communal threads. Still, a definite grassroots vigor is evident.

Founding gathering of The Finnish Bitcoin Association successful Helsinki connected May 6, 2023. (Elias Ahonen)

Where tin I walk crypto successful Helsinki?

Paying with Bitcoin is not communal successful Finland, wherever paper and app payments dominate. One notable objection is the edifice Faro, astatine which a fewer radical are apt to bargain a burger and beers with sats astatine the monthly Bitcoin meetup.

On the barroom side, Taudo Baari and Time Bar besides judge crypto. There is besides the Osuva shooting range.

Samuel Harjunpää, CEO and co-founder of hardware startup Xellox and regular astatine the Faro Bitcoin meetup, comments to Magazine connected the authorities of Bitcoin acceptance:

“A fewer restaurants and bars person already been ‘orange-pilled’ — the biggest obstacles are the outgo infrastructure and bookkeeping.”

Crypto projects and companies successful Helsinki

Today, Helsinki has a vibrant tech and startup country with galore coworking spaces. The metropolis is besides big to the yearly Slush startup conference, which draws 25,000 participants.

Web3 Helsinki is simply a student-run enactment that organized its archetypal lawsuit connected April 20, 2020, with astir 150 radical successful attendance, making it possibly the largest azygous crypto lawsuit of the year.

This year’s events person included the Web3 Bash successful precocious April, followed by the Aurora Nordic Web3 Conference successful June. On June 6, the BRIDG3 Blockchain acme was held astatine Tampere’s Nokia Arena, focusing connected Web3, the metaverse and decentralized autonomous organizations.

The Aurora Nordic Web3 Conference, held successful Helsinki connected June 6, 2023. (Elias Ahonen)

The Finnish Bitcoin Association was established connected May 6, successful an lawsuit attended by Magazine, with rank fees paid chiefly with Bitcoin via the Lightning Network. Upon the decision of formalities, the saunas of the hosting coworking abstraction were fired up.

For those funny successful nonfungible tokens (NFTs), Fungi is a level advertizing a no-code solution that lets organizations physique NFT-based communities. One of these was a metaverse land called cornerstone.land for VR workplace ZOAN, wherever 100 plots could beryllium purchased arsenic NFTs.

HABBO NFT, operated by the section creators of the 23-year-old online chat country crippled HABBO Hotel, has dropped an 11,600-piece avatar postulation connected Opensea and is presently processing an NFT-based game. A radical called The Future of Art has besides dedicated itself to promoting integer creation and runs an NFT gallery.

The Finnish Web3 Landscape, according to Tampere-based The Good Cartel, which exists to enactment Finnish Web3 startups. (The Good Cartel)

An aspiring LinkedIn competitor, Kleoverse, is a “proof-of-talent” Web3 level for recruiters and jobseekers that displays skills specified arsenic cognition successful programming languages done badges alternatively of substance connected a resume.

Phaver is gathering a Web3 societal media app powered by Lens Protocol, which bills itself arsenic the “social furniture of Web3”. Phaver is 1 of galore section projects that person worked with tech plan workplace STRGL, which specializes successful protocol-level Web3 solutions. STRGL’s managing director, Kasper Karimaa, sees Helsinki arsenic a haven for developers:

“Finland’s relation successful blockchain innovation done its agile engineering assemblage marque Helsinki the cleanable spot to assemble a skilled squad successful research, plan and development.”

One of the astir wide known crypto companies successful the state was P2P speech LocalBitcoins, which employed astir 50 radical earlier closing its doors successful February 2023. CEO Nikolaus Kangas told Cointelegraph that this was owed to a nonaccomplishment to “turn our commercialized volumes and declining marketplace stock backmost to growth.”

This is it! Here is your past accidental to people a Denarium carnal #bitcoin earlier we adjacent store forever. Don't miss retired connected this unsocial accidental to drawback a portion of crypto history! pic.twitter.com/5oYKqMuGki

— Denarium Bitcoin (@DenariumBitcoin) July 18, 2020

Bittiraha, which translates to “bit money” successful Finnish, is different aged section crypto company. It was founded circa 2012 and installed the country’s archetypal Bitcoin ATM astatine the Helsinki railway presumption successful December 2013.

The institution was besides a distributor of Casascius carnal Bitcoins and yet made its ain enactment of “Denarium” wallets. The genitor institution Coinmotion, based a fewer hours northbound successful Jyväskylä, now operates a cryptocurrency exchange. 

Another large Finnish speech called Northcrypto tin beryllium recovered successful Turku.

A euro stablecoin has besides been developed successful the city. Membrane Finance’s EUROe was launched successful February 2023 and is designed to beryllium an “EU-regulated full-reserve stablecoin” that is compliant with caller legislation. While this is notable considering the comparatively fewer operational euro stablecoins, measurement remains debased astatine astir $20,000 per day.

Membrane Finance is excited to denote the motorboat of EUROe connected Ethereum!

Read much astatine https://t.co/nV8dYKkBmK, and work the thread beneath to spot however you tin get started with $EUROe from today!

— EUROe (@EUROemoney) February 2, 2023

Helsinki autochthonal Anita “Krypto Granny” Kalergis spends astir of her clip successful Dubai, wherever she organizes blockchain conferences. She feels that Finnish entrepreneurs and decision-makers deficiency bravery, preferring to hold for idiosyncratic other to instrumentality the pb and for regulatory certainty some from the nationalist and EU levels. “Most enactment is not advertised, with particularly older concern radical acrophobic to stone the vessel oregon marque large moves,” she observes.

“Companies present volition physique thing to 95% completion earlier opening their mouth, whereas projects successful different countries volition rise wealth and physique partnerships based connected a whitepaper portion ‘testing successful production.’”

Helsinki is surrounded by oversea and leaves country for nature. (Elias Ahonen)

Helsinki’s crypto controversies

In 2018, the Finnish customs work planned to auction 1,666 BTC that it had seized successful a cause case, but decided not to proceed “due to concerns that the virtual wealth would instrumentality to the hands of criminals,” displaying a alternatively antagonistic authoritative presumption of cryptocurrency. In July 2022, the authorities yet auctioned astir 2,000 BTC for $47 million, with proceeds being donated to Ukraine. 

The Finnish Government decided connected important further assistance to #Ukraine. Finland volition donate tens of millions of euros from the merchantability of #bitcoin seized by Finnish Customs to Ukraine. This historical determination was taken by the Ministry and Finance and Ministry for Foreign Affairs. pic.twitter.com/RNDenhsBWH

— Valtiovarainministeriö | Finansministeriet (@VMuutiset) April 28, 2022

In December 2021, section media reported a inclination of concern scams involving the faces of salient people, including industrialist Heikki Herlin and then-Prime Minister Sanna Marin. 

Earlier successful 2018, the constabulary besides made warnings regarding a inclination of Bitcoin blackmail relating to bogus claims that hackers had webcam worldly of users visiting pornographic websites. In 2022, a Helsinki ticker trader fell victim to a communal crypto scam, handing implicit Rolex watches worthy $400,000 aft mistakenly believing that helium had received a Bitcoin transaction.

Cryptocurrency, often adjacent to scams successful the news, has travel to beryllium viewed with a comparatively precocious grade of suspicion crossed astir of society. Commenting connected the determination to halt the 2018 customs seizure sale, Pekka Pylkkänen, caput of concern astatine the Finnish Customs Service, highlighted concerns astir wealth laundering, telling nationalist broadcaster YLE that “the buyers of cyber currency seldom usage them for mean endeavors.”

National media regularly interrogation outspoken cryptocurrency professional Aleksi Grym, caput of fintech for the Finnish Central Bank, arsenic an authoritative adept without seeking alternate pro-cryptocurrency views, though sum has been improving.

As 1 whitethorn announcement from this article, the word “Web3” is preferred, presumably owed to its distancing from the antagonistic stereotypes of cryptocurrency.

Neither the country’s governmental constitution nor immoderate large enactment oregon different ample grouping of the colonisation could beryllium described outright arsenic being “pro-crypto.”

One crushed for this could beryllium Finland’s stable, highly functional, and high-trust society, successful which astir radical bash not spot the request to “disrupt” oregon hole thing with cryptocurrency. Bank transfers are escaped and near-instantaneous crossed the EU, with currency usage progressively rare. Virtually cipher is un-banked, and the astir trusted instauration is the police, with 95% nationalist support. Harjunpää, whose startup is moving connected solutions to support backstage keys, explains the disconnect:

“Many radical don’t recognize Bitcoin and deliberation it’s thing betwixt transgression wealth and a pyramid scheme.”

It is besides notable that the “moon” mentality and dreams of speedy wealthiness recovered successful galore cryptocurrency investors is mostly seen successful a peculiarly antagonistic light, with Malmi noting that helium ne'er acceptable retired to marque wealth with Bitcoin “perhaps owing to Finnish culture” and his idealistic mentality. 

In the aforesaid vein, cryptocurrencies are seen by immoderate arsenic drivers of inequality successful a state successful which ample differences successful wealthiness are often considered taboo.

Crypto acquisition and community

The Finnish Innovation Fund, oregon Sitra, has stated it arsenic a precedence to accelerate the section improvement of Web3 services, saying that “it’s successful Finland’s involvement to play an progressive relation successful ensuring that the metaverse is created successful enactment with European values.”

The money has besides worked with the Finnish National Gallery to make The Finnish Metagallery, an creation assemblage successful the Decentraland metaverse whose gathering is modeled from the Finnish Pavilion arsenic it appeared astatine the 1900 Paris World Fair.

Johanna Eiramo from the Finnish National Gallery presenting The Finnish Metagallery successful Helsinki astatine Web3 Bash connected April 27. (Elias Ahonen)

In the aged superior of Turku, The University of Turku hosts the Critical Inquiry Into DAO’s (CIDS) research group, of which the writer is part. 

Notable crypto figures from Helsinki

Martti Malmi, the archetypal idiosyncratic to merchantability Bitcoin for fiat; Henri Brade, committee subordinate of Coinmotion; Aleksi Löytynoja, CEO & co-founder of Kleoverse; Niko Laamanen, laminitis of Konsensus.

Martin Wichmann, president of Konsensus; Antti Innanen, laminitis of Fungi; Sointu Karjalainen, laminitis of The Good Cartel; Juha Viitala, CEO and co-founder of Membrane Finance; Mika Timonen, laminitis of Habbo NFT; Olli Tianinen, CEO of Equilibrium Labs; Kasper Karimaa, managing manager astatine STRGL; Jarmo Suoranta, CEO of TX – Tomorrow Explored.

Keir Finlow-Bates, CEO of Chainfrog; Ville Runola, CEO and laminitis of Northcrypto; Samuel Harjunpää, CEO and co-founder of Xellox; Joonatan Lintala, CEO and co-founder of Phaver.

Cointelegraph squad members often recovered successful Helsinki: Elias Ahonen.

If you person immoderate suggestions for additions to this guide, delight interaction [email protected].