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2025-05-29 12:26:43Saturday 9AM It’s a chilly Saturday morning in Warsaw, and I don’t want to get out of bed. This is not because of the hangover; it’s because I feel like a failure.
The first day of Bitcoin FilmFest was a whirlwind of workshops, panels and running between stages. The pitch competition did not go my way. Another ‘pitching rabbit’ (an actual experienced film-maker) was selected to win the €3,000 of funding.
Rather than get up and search for coffee, I replay the scenes in my head. What could I have done differently? Will investors ever believe in me: I’m just a writer with no contacts in the industry. Do I have what it takes to produce a film?
Eventually, I haul myself out of bed and walk to Amondo, the festival’s morning HQ (and technically, the smallest cinema in Europe). Upon arrival, I find Bitcoin psychonaut Ioni Appelberg holding court in front of around a dozen enraptured disciples. Soon, the conversation spills out to the street to free up space for more workshops.
I attend a talk on film funding, then pay for coffee using bitcoin. I see familiar faces from the two previous nights. We compare notes on Friday night and check the day’s schedule. The morning clouds burn off, and things feel a little brighter.
The afternoon session begins just a few blocks away in the towering Palace of Culture and Science. My role in today's proceedings is to present my freedom fiction project, 21 Futures, on the community stage. Other presentations range from rap videos and advice on finding jobs in bitcoin to hosting ‘Bitcoin Walks’. This is how we are fixing the culture.
Saturday 8PM I feel a tap on my shoulder. ‘Excuse me, Mr. Philip. Your car is waiting. The Producers’ Dinner is starting soon’.
What? Me, a producer? I’ve been taking part in some panels and talks, but I assumed my benefits as a guest were limited to a comped ticket and generous goodie bag.
Soon, I am sharing a taxi with a Dubai-based journalist, a Colombian director, and the cypherpunk sponsor of the pitch competition I didn’t win.
The pierogies I dreamed of earlier that day somehow manifest (happy endings do exist), and we enjoy a raucous dinner including obligatory slivovitz.
Sunday 2AM The last few hours of blur include a bracing city-bike ride in a crew of nine attendees back to the Palace of Culture, chatting with a fellow bitcoin meetup organiser, and vaguely promising to attend a weekend rave with a crew of Polish artists and musicians on the outskirts of London.
I leave the party while it’s still in full swing. In five hours, I have to wake up to complete my Run for Hal in Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły Park.
Thursday 9PM The festival kicks off in Samo Centrum on Pizza Day. I arrive in a taxi straight from a cramped flight (fix the airlines!), having not eaten for around ten hours.
The infectious sounds of softly spoken Aussie bitrocker Roger9000 pound into the damp night. I’m three beers in, being presented by the organisers to attendees like a (very tall) show pony. I try to explain more about my books, my publishing connections, my short film.
When I search for the food I ordered an hour ago, I find it has been given away. The stern-faced Polish pizza maker shrugs. ‘You not here.’
I’m so hungry I could cry (six hours of Ryanair can do that to a man). And then, a heroic Czech pleb donates half a pizza to me. Side note: this same heroic pleb accidentally locked me out of my film-funds while trying to fix a wallet bug on Sunday night.
I step out into the rain. Roger9000 reminds us we should have laser eyes well past 100k. I take a bite of pizza and life tastes good.
The Films Side events, artists, late nights, and pitcher’s regret is all well and good, but what of the films?
My highlights included Golden Rabbit winner No More Inflation — a moving narrative with interviews from two dozen economists, visionaries, and inflation survivors.
Hotel Bitcoin, was a surprisingly funny comedy romp about a group of idiots who happen across a valuable laptop.
Revolución Bitcoin — an approachable and thorough documentary aimed to bring greater adoption in the Spanish-speaking world.
And, as a short-fiction guy, I enjoyed the short films The Man Who Wouldn’t Cry, a visit to New York’s only Somali restaurant in Finding Home.
Sunday 7PM The award ceremony has just finished. I head to Amondo for the final time to pay for mojitos in bitcoin and say goodbye to newly made friends. I feel like I’ve met almost everyone in attendance. Are you going to BTC Prague?!? we ask as we part ways.
Of course, the best thing about any festival is the people, and BFF25 had a cast of characters worthy of any art house flick:
- The bright-eyed and confident frontwoman of the metal band Scardust
- A nostr-native artist selling his intricate canvases to the highest zapper
- A dreadlocked DJ who wears a pair of flying goggles on his head at all times
- An affable British filmmaker explaining the virtues of the word ‘chucklesome’
- A Duracell-powered organiser who seems to know every song, person, film, book, and guest at the festival.
Warsaw itself feels like it has a role to play, too. Birdsong and green parks contrast the foreboding Communist-era architecture. The weather changes faster than my mood — heavy greys transform to bright sunshine. The roads around the venue close on Sunday for a political rally. And there we are in the middle, watching our bitcoin films.
Tuesday 10AM I’m at home now, squinting at my email inbox and piles of washing, wondering when the hell I’ll find time. The festival Telegram group is still buzzing with activity. Side events like martial arts tutorials, trips to a shooting range, boat tours. 5AM photos of street graffiti, lost and found items, and people asking ‘is anyone still around?’
This was not just a film festival. BFF is truly a celebration of culture — Art. Books. Comedy. Music. Video. Talk. Connection.
All this pure signal has lifted my spirits so much that despite me being a newbie filmmaker, armed only with a biro, a couple of powerpoints and a Geyser fund page, I know I will succeed in my mission. It turns out you can just film things.
You may have attended bitcoin conferences before — you know, the ones with ‘fireside chats’, VIP areas, and overpriced merch. Bitcoin FilmFest is a moment in time. We are fixing the culture, year after year, until art can flourish again.
As fellow author Aaron Koenig commented during a panel session, ‘In twenty years, we won’t be drawing laser eyes and singing about honey badgers. Our grandchildren won’t understand the change we went through.’
Would I do it all again? Of course!
Join me next June in Warsaw.
I’ll be the tall one presenting his short animation premiere.
Philip Charter is a full-time writer and part-time cat herder. As well as writing for bitcoin founders and companies, he runs the 21 Futures fiction project.
Find out more about theNoderoid Saga animation projecton Geyser.
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@ a396e36e:ec991f1c
2025-05-28 22:27:45
👤 Generation X and Bitcoin: Between Invisibility, Structural Disillusionment, and Defiance
Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, has been largely sidelined in generational discourse. Unlike the baby boomers —symbols of stability and prosperity— or millennials and Gen Z —constant fixtures in the media and cultural spotlight— Gen X remains the least mentioned, the least studied, and often not even recognized by its own members as a distinct generation.
Today, they are in midlife —a period that, according to the U-shaped curve of happiness, is one of the most emotionally and psychologically difficult stages: deteriorating health, professional stagnation, and the dual burden of caring for both parents and children. But their condition is not just a matter of age —it’s the product of a unique convergence of economic and political failure.
Structurally, Generation X reached its crucial phase of financial consolidation during the global economic crisis of 2008 —a moment that froze wage growth and severely limited access to housing, investment opportunities, and savings. In parallel, they faced increasing labor precarization: unstable contracts, outsourcing, erosion of social protections, and the dismantling of job security. Compared to other generations, their economic mobility was minimal. Even in terms of wealth accumulation and home ownership, many Gen Xers show weaker indicators than early-born millennials at the same life stage.
At the same time, many countries —especially in Latin America and parts of Europe— turned toward alternative models to free-market systems: socialist proposals that promised redistribution, justice, and equality. But in practice, these models led to state dependency, excessive intervention, economic rigidity, and a loss of productive dynamism. The outcome was devastating: rising poverty, institutional decay, inflation, plummeting investment, growing corruption, and a widespread collapse of trust.
For a generation raised on values of effort, autonomy, and social mobility, this ideological shift brought a double betrayal —first from liberalism, which failed to deliver on its promises, and then from socialism, which entrenched poverty, dependency, and dysfunction.
And yet, while younger generations increasingly embrace state-centric proposals like universal basic income, subsidies, or nationalizations as progressive solutions, many in Gen X see these not as innovation, but as déjà vu —a recycling of failed models they’ve already lived and paid for.
It’s at this point that Bitcoin emerges as more than just a financial technology. For many Gen Xers, Bitcoin is both a symbolic and concrete response — a refuge from a system that betrayed them. It’s not just about investment. It’s about individual sovereignty. They call it “fuck you money” because it represents a total break from traditional structures: it doesn’t depend on banks, governments, political parties, or promises that never materialize.
Bitcoin is money without permission, without censorship, without planned devaluation. It’s a tool for radical autonomy. For a generation marked by skepticism, self-reliance, and disillusionment, it stands as a quiet but powerful form of resistance — a way of saying: “I don’t depend on you. I don’t believe you. I don’t need you.”
Today, while others debate new statist models or more market reforms, many Gen Xers are simply opting out. Bitcoin isn’t just an economic choice — it’s a stance. A way to reclaim the individual control the system once denied them.