The largest Bitcoin conference, featuring 35,000 attendees, over 450 speakers, 3,000+ companies, and 100+ artists over four days
The largest Bitcoin event in history, Bitcoin 2022, explored the technological developments, financial empowerment, and countercultural impact that surround this open-source technology. The conference drew people from all areas of life. Despite the fact that the majority of attendees were young males, there were many middle-aged and older people in attendance, as well as much more women than at the previous year’s conference. Many work in the fintech business, while others work for more traditional financial institutions, non-profits, or even themselves.
Big things were afoot for the world’s first cryptocurrency. The general feeling among the disappointed community is that there should have been more announcements. However, there was a lot more going on beneath the surface of the event. Bitcoin is for everyone, and this has never been clearer. It is the responsibility of the community and network to promote the community and network. Any points of failure were eliminated since Satoshi was not targeted. However, without a business bottom line, a board of directors, and a large marketing budget, Bitcoin announcements are limited to those who build on or around it.
So the fact is that many of these folks don’t perceive themselves as much in real life. So you now have three steps of varying sizes. On the largest scale, we’ve seen a lot of larger organizations, particularly in the stocks sector, sort of come in and sort of show off their bitcoin emphasis.
We’ve also seen a couple announcements. And, given that this is a Bitcoin conference, the announcements have centered on incorporating Bitcoin’s Lightning Network in some way. So, this week, we saw payment processors BitPay and Square add Lightning Network functionality.
Then, earlier today, we saw Robinhood become the latest player to do so, adding the Bitcoin network to its wallet use. Another thing Robinhood has been working on is eventually opening up their crypto wallet so users may send and receive transactions and cryptocurrencies.
Perhaps Bitcoin culture is calming down. Perhaps enthusiasts of the original coin are ready to welcome DeFi and the Ethereum-powered world. Maybe. Let’s watch what happens tomorrow at Bitcoin 2022.
