Baltic Honeybadger 2022: For Bitcoiners, The Yield Is The Friends We Make Along The Way

2 years ago

Riga’s Baltic Honeybadger 2022 league was afloat of high-quality presentations, large announcements and notable speakers.

This is an sentiment editorial by Josef Tětek, the Trezor marque ambassador for SatoshiLabs.

After a three-year hiatus, Bitcoiners erstwhile again met astatine the iconic Baltic Honeybadger lawsuit successful the Latvian superior of Riga.

Around 800 radical attended the conference, truthful it was a alternatively tiny lawsuit — by comparison, the Bitcoin 2022 league successful Miami welcomed implicit 20,000 visitors. However, the saying that "small is beautiful" applied successful this lawsuit -— compared to the Miami conference, visitors astatine Honeybadger did not person to interest astir endless crowds and queues. But astatine the aforesaid time, it was a league with planetary notoriety and 1 that was held wholly successful English, truthful determination was nary occupation attending hard-hitting talks and aboriginal chatting with well-known Bitcoiners similar Adam Back, Jimmy Song, Peter Todd, Gigi and galore others. Several twelve speakers gave presentations implicit the 2 days successful 2 lecture rooms: the main Bitcoin Stage, and the secondary Sats Stage.

The full league was filmed and the recordings volition beryllium disposable connected the Hodl Hodl YouTube channel (at the clip of writing, lone the Bitcoin Stage talks person been published).

Free Speech And Free Money

After an opening code by Max Keidun from Hodl Hodl (the league organizer), Giacomo Zucco took the floor. Zucco didn’t uncover the rubric of his speech beforehand, truthful the assemblage had nary thought what to expect. However, the long-time Bitcoiner, with his diagnostic wit peppered with an Italian accent, did not disappoint this clip arsenic helium revealed the code title:

But arsenic Zucco readily acknowledged, specified a rubric mightiness offend some, truthful helium decided to marque it nicer:

Zucco explained that state of code is simply a cardinal quality close to which we tin lone marque an objection erstwhile code becomes nonstop aggression, arsenic successful the lawsuit of ordering a execution oregon deliberate fraud. He warned of the expanding level of censorship by some governments and corporations; the lone applicable self-defense is to physique and usage agorist tools specified arsenic the Tor browser.

Zucco past made a segue to money, which besides falls nether state of code extortion (especially successful an property wherever wealth is overwhelmingly integer successful nature) — radical person the cardinal close to take their monetary instrumentality and usage their wealth arsenic they spot fit. However, arsenic with state of speech, state of wealth is not guaranteed: again, agorist instruments specified arsenic bitcoin and the bitcoin ecosystem request to beryllium built. A punctuation worthy remembering:

“Know-your-customer laws mean that you don’t recognize economics. The full constituent of wealth is that you don’t person to cognize your customer."

Bitcoin And Islamic Finance

Another speech worthy watching is “Bitcoin And Islamic Finance” by Allen Farrington. Farrington is the co-author of “Bitcoin Is Venice,” which successful my sentiment is 1 of the precise champion books written connected bitcoin and economics.

According to Farrington, Islamic concern has go a benignant of a Bitcoin meme: we often notation to the conception without decently knowing its tenets. However, we should marque the effort to larn much astir Islamic finance, due to the fact that its principles are astir the cleanable antithesis of modern fiat money, and are accordant with however the satellite would apt run connected a bitcoin standard.

The 3 main tenets of Islamic concern are:

Risk is shared betwixt trading partners, not transferred
Collateral is transferred betwixt the parties, not financialised
The tone of the instrumentality is important, not the missive of the law

The effect of these principles is that, for example, it is not imaginable to judge a indebtedness backed by definite collateral and inactive person the aforesaid collateral disposable for usage by the borrower (as is the lawsuit with mortgages).

If you find the mortgage-free satellite to beryllium a chaotic idea, past it's worthy reminding that the over-financialization of existent property caused some the Great Financial Crisis of 2007 to 2008, and besides made a beingness indebtedness enslaved retired of virtually everyone who wants to ain their ain homes:

“The aversion to financialization successful muslim concern comes from the beauteous straightforward thought that determination ought to beryllium a one-to-one narration betwixt a fiscal instrumentality and the underlying real-economy asset. The much this ratio diverges, the little existent concern becomes and the much we extremity up gathering a location of cards that volition surely 1 time collapse.”

–Farrington

Bitcoin is adjacent to the principles of Islamic concern due to the fact that erstwhile it is utilized arsenic a transaction instrumentality oregon collateral, it needs to beryllium really utilized and sent to the counterparty's code (the classical not your keys, not your coins). The compatibility betwixt bitcoin (i.e., successful the rule of "commodity money") and Islamic concern is not accidental, arsenic these principles person evolved implicit hundreds of years nether the golden modular and a strategy of commerce that relied heavy connected merchant reputation.

However, dissimilar successful the Western world, these principles person survived to this time successful Islamic finance, arsenic they person go portion of the religion and frankincense morals of the Islamic world. But, arsenic Farrington pointed out, the principles themselves tin beryllium applied extracurricular of immoderate spiritual discourse — they are simply dependable fiscal principles.

Security And Hardware Wallets

Another important taxable of the league was unafraid bitcoin aforesaid custody, a taxable that is inherently linked to the industries of hardware wallets and carnal backups. These industries were represented by the founders of Trezor, BitBox, Cryptosteel and Tinyseed, who were each contiguous successful Riga.

The conception of air gapping was discussed connected 2 instances: successful the sheet connected security, and successful Douglas Bakkum's lecture. Bakkum defined aerial gapping arsenic a signifier of information transportation betwixt hardware wallets and computers/phones utilizing SD cards oregon QR codes (i.e., not via USB cables). Addressing SD cards, Peter Todd noted that these devices present travel with analyzable microprocessors that astir apt person a wider tract of onslaught than USB cables. Stick added that QR codes, not SD cards, tin beryllium considered the due method for aerial gapping these days; and besides that the hazard with USB cables tends to beryllium the other of what immoderate whitethorn fear, i.e., with USB devices attacking the big (computer oregon phone), not the different mode around.

“We should beryllium reasoning astir information menace modeling. I deliberation that the information menace exemplary of regular radical is precise antithetic from that of Edward Snowden’s for example. And what we are trying to bash is to tackle the problems of 99% of people, but if you person three-letter agencies coming aft you, I hold you should beryllium utilizing thing precise antithetic than the off-the-shelf solutions.”

–Stick

Bitcoin Counterculture And Its Psychopathic Defenders

Rigel Walshe (of Swan Bitcoin) dedicated his speech to Bitcoin culture. According to Walshe, not everyone agrees that Bitcoin represents a civilization astatine all, however, arsenic helium stated, "When you get a mates of radical together, you get a culture."

And Bitcoin civilization is champion described arsenic a counterculture, that is, a subculture revolving astir the progressive absorption to definite elements of the mainstream culture. The destiny of palmy countercultures is that sooner oregon aboriginal they go portion of the mainstream: Walshe gave the examples of the emergence of punk, hip-hop, marijuana and LGBT subcultures. This modulation from counterculture to mainstream civilization is accompanied by phenomena that tin beryllium understood done 3 sociological theories:

Mimetic Theory: Most radical follow the desires of relation models, and past imitate their behavior. Many latecomers to the subculture cannot adequately explicate wherefore they judge what they judge — they tin lone repetition what others are saying and crook up the volume, often upping 1 different successful extremist statements. Tribalism and purity tests arise.
Geeks, Mops And Sociopaths Theory: Describes however caller ideas go cool. Cool things commencement with creators (Satoshi Nakamoto), that are helped by fanatics (Laszlo Hanyecz, Andreas Antonopoulos) who dispersed the connection and physique the infrastructure. Then travel the mops: those who soak up the bully worldly but lend small (various Twitter influencers travel to caput here). The last radical are often the sociopaths who exploit the full subculture for their gains (Richard Heart, Do Kwon).
The Eternal September Theory: In the aboriginal ’90s, the net (or rather, Usenet) was predominantly accessed done universities, and each September, it was swamped by assemblage freshmen who didn’t cognize what they were doing and had to beryllium taught by the veterans from erstwhile years. The “eternal September” came when, successful the mid-’90s, the net started to beryllium utilized by regular households and noobs started coming successful droves each day. Bitcoin is experiencing this stage, with waves and waves of caller users incapable to recognize the concepts of backstage keys and different antecedently unseen elements.

In conclusion, Walshe pointed retired that there’s a commercialized disconnected betwixt numbers and nuance, and the lone solution is to effort to fig retired what the halfway ideas of Bitcoin civilization that we privation to impart connected caller users are, and crook these into memes, dependable bites and digestible pieces of information.

“So it’s connected america to distill these ideas, and to disseminate these ideas to the newcomers that are coming aboard and to the sociopaths that would usage bitcoin for their ain nefarious ends to support it. And support it similar a fucking psychopath.”

–Walshe

The talks described supra are conscionable a sensation of the monolithic league program, which featured implicit 40 idiosyncratic lectures and treatment panels. I'm definite I'll observe much treasures successful the recordings successful the coming weeks — arsenic successful erstwhile years, the speakers had a batch to accidental and I judge we'll beryllium returning to immoderate of the talks years from now. For instance, my favourite speech from the 2019 variation is “Social Impacts Of Gold And Bitcoin.”

Conference Announcements

During the Honeybadger event, respective noteworthy announcements were made:

Trezor CoinJoin Implementation: Trezor and Wasabi Wallet are joining forces to present the CoinJoin anonymization method for hardware wallets aboriginal adjacent year. Trezor owners volition beryllium capable to premix their coins utilizing the WabiSabi protocol without their coins leaving the unafraid situation of the hardware wallet. This is the archetypal implementation of its benignant and a existent gyration successful Bitcoin anonymity.

BTCPay CoinJoin Implementation (also utilizing the WabiSabi protocol): This means that a merchant oregon a fundraiser organizer tin obfuscate the transaction past of immoderate received bitcoin — this is accelerated becoming a invited and an acute usage case, arsenic the recent protests of Canadian truckers illustrated.

Trezor Suite, Hodl Hodl Trading Offers: For immoderate clip now, it has been imaginable to bargain and merchantability bitcoin straight successful Trezor Suite, the autochthonal interface of the Trezor hardware wallet. Until now, however, astir of these offers required the users to acquisition a KYC identification. During the conference, a concern with the Hodl Hodl decentralized speech was announced; soon it volition beryllium imaginable to bargain bitcoin straight from idiosyncratic sellers, frankincense without the request for identification.

Prince Philip Of Serbia Joining Jan3 As CSO: Samson Mow’s Jan3 is simply a Bitcoin institution with the ngo to accelerate hyperbitcoinization, and Prince Philip of Serbia has joined its ranks arsenic main strategy officer.

Fun Off Stage

As is the lawsuit astatine galore conferences, astir of the amusive was had distant from the stages. Although Honeybadger was a comparatively tiny conference, it attracted dozens of well-known Bitcoiners, and the speakers didn't person their ain backstage VIP conception (save for a tiny refreshment room), truthful they moved among the attendees and engaged successful fruitful conversations.

For maine personally, the astir absorbing treatment was the 1 I had with the aforementioned Farrington, wherever I had large amusive talking astir the penning process of “Bitcoin is Venice” and of “A Tale of Two Talebs” (I anticipation to person convinced Farrington to people the second successful publication signifier arsenic well!).

It was besides bully to spot 1 of the fathers of bitcoin, Adam Back, wearing a BTCPay Server hoodie:

In the accumulation area, attendees could speech to folks from Braiins, Mempool.Space (I got a chill portion of swag from softsimon!), Cryptosteel, Tinyseed, IVPN, Peach, SeedSigner, BTCTKVR, Satochip, Debifi — portion Jimmy Song, Daniel Prince and Knut Svanholm sold autographed books.

What’s Next For Bitcoin In Europe?

Baltic Honeybadger was, until recently, the largest bitcoin-only league successful Europe. In October, this presumption volition apt beryllium trumped by Bitcoin Amsterdam. Then, that 1 volition apt beryllium superseded by a yet bigger event: BTC Prague.

This is simply a impermanent station by Josef Tětek. Opinions expressed are wholly their ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of BTC Inc oregon Bitcoin Magazine.

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