Surfin'Bitcoin, the rising conference

A look back at the Surfin’Bitcoin 2022 conference in Biarritz. There is something for everyone with four major themes : Geopolitics and economy, Mining and energy, Finance and regulation, Technology and tools. Here’s a summary to guide you to the best replays to come on the event’s youtube channel.

Geopolitics and economics

This theme was a huge success. In particular, we recommend you to visit the Surfin-Bitcoin youtube channel to enjoy Alexandre Stachchenko’s conference where Bitcoin will be seen as the next great international reserve currency. Title: “Bitcoin, a major new geopolitical and economic issue”.

A more topical question than ever because of the freezing of 300 billion dollars and 300 billion euros of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves. Not to mention the fact that China and Saudi Arabia want to trade in yuan instead of dollars, among other geopolitically important countries (Iran, Egypt, Turkey, etc.).

The debate between Keynesians and Austrians also stirred the crowds. Conference Title: “The two opposing economic visions – Austrian School VS Keynesianism”. Those who appreciate economic theory will find their account with Yorick de Monbynes popular in the oven and mill throughout the conference:

If you think that inflation is explained by the availability of energy and raw materials, go to the debate entitled: “WTF happened in 1971”. Your servant then defended that the rise in prices is above all a question of energy shortages, even if it is true that the States have far too much debt…

Don’t miss the panel in which Phillipe Herlin and Yves Choueifaty participated especially on the CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency). The CBDC is a tool of apportionment and censorship worthy of the worst dystopias that will never see the light of day. Title: “central bank digital currencies, risk or opportunity”.

Technology and Tools

This second part has also been imitated by tech savvy people. Julien Guitton reminded us of the need to demonstrate digital hygiene (“by uninstalling Microsoft products…”…). Conference Title: “Cypherpunk: privacy and digital hygiene”.

Condensat’s CEO is following in the footsteps of Timothy May (“The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto”), by Eric Hughes (“Cypherpunk’s Manifesto”) or John Perry Barlow with his declaration of independence in cyberspace. It is worth seeing the toxicity of bitcoiners.

Elite programmers made the trip, including Thaddeous Dryja, co-founder of the Lightning Network, the second series which ended the war big block by greatly increasing the transaction throughput of the bitcoin network. In English.

But still Maxim Orlovsky introduced RGB. This system makes it possible to create smart contracts using the Lightning Network. In other words, we don’t need ethereum anymore. Conference Title: “LNP/BP Technology – Why and how it will redefine #DeFi to #BiFi”.

“Imagine a world where decentralized protocols can be created without generating new tokens, where smart contracts are private, with high transaction throughput, all backed by bitcoin. Where decentralized finance protocols are censorship resistant and have no governance issues like in the ethereum world… […] »

Maxim Orlovsky

It is also worth referring to other conferences, for example “Web 1,2,3…5 WTF”by John Carvalho, or even “What makes Bitcoin different from all other cryptocurrencies”by Gilles Cadignan and Kévin Loaec.

That said, these conferences are reserved for a knowledgeable public because of the often high technical level.

Mining and Energy

You will have to watch the one man show by Sébastien Gouspillou, a French pioneer mining of BTC. His stories and broken voice brightened the conference. We will keep from his speech that the Americans definitely made a mistake in settling in Texas. In fact the energy mix contains more than 30% of gas. Miners like Riot are also competing with the population for juice…

The conference of Michel Khazzaka, CEO of ValueChain, made a lot of noise. We then learned that bitcoin consumes 80 TWh per year (compared to the 130 TWh put forward by Digiconomics), against more than 2000 TWh for the traditional payment system. That is 27 times more.

“A BTC transaction consumes as much energy as a transaction from the banking system”, he declared. Name of the conf: “Energy efficiency of Bitcoin compared to traditional payments”.

Don’t miss the debate “PoW, PoS, the war of consensus algorithms”with shitcoiners Abdelhamid Bakhta (ETH) and Mr. TK mining against maxis Gilles Cadignan and Fanis Michalakis.

We will remember that in PoS it is impossible to buy ETH from a group of it stakeholders become dominant if he does not want to sell them. But you can always buy more machines from mining if a group of miners became dominant and hostile. Not to mention that you are too nodes which was great during the big block war…

The argument that the trend is towards the centralization of mining via huge mining farms Fanis defeated Michalakis. As for the latter, the search for inexpensive energy will almost certainly disrupt production everywhere in the world, where there is a surplus of renewable energy.

Other conferences (this time in English) that you can watch silently: “The ESG case for Bitcoin”, “How bitcoin mining can change the energy industry” and, above all, Stratum V2, it is a software that allows miners to make their own blocks to prevent pools from ming to censor certain transactions.

Finance and regulation

The less sexy conferences concerned the regulation of bitcoin, a taboo subject among the maximizers who flocked to the Basque coast.

The conference “The trade trap and the 1000% fantasy” those who make the mistake of believing that the trade different from sports betting. The panel notably consisted of Owen Simonin (Hasher) who shared the lessons of his Terra-Luna experience…

The conference “Debunking: bitcoin, money laundering and regulation (MiCa)” great if you want information on the sticks the EU needs to put in bitcoin’s wheels.

For example, the obligation for exchanges not accepting BTC suspected of coming from illegal transactions. It’s like the banks started rejecting bank notes that had traces of cocaine…

Not to mention covert attempts at prevention exchanges to allow their customers to withdraw their BTC on their own purse…

In addition to all these conferences and panels, there are many more technical “workshops” that will soon be online. Until they are, find their titles on the site surfin’Bitcoin HERE. And the rest of the program HERE.

The Surfin’Bitcoin 2022 conference in Biarritz has approached the position of its spring counterpart, the Bitcoin conf in Miami. Many thanks to Jonathan Herscovicihis cradle Josselin Cooper and all their staff.

Get:

HERE is the replay of the Geopolitics and Economics evening (English part)

HERE is the replay of the Financial and Regulatory morning (English part)

HERE is the replay of the Technology and Tools evening (English part)

HERE is the replay of the morning Mining and energy

The replays of the conference in French should not be delayed.

This Surfin-Bitcoin 2022 edition was a success. Beautiful weather, high quality participants and a fun atmosphere on the great terrace above the big beach. It’s a great joy to leave your anonymous avatar to toast with your family. We are already looking forward to next year!

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