@ croxroadnews
2024-12-23 03:46:03
A couple of months ago, one of our guys was at the office talking about his amazing experience in Latvia 15 years ago and, surprise, surprise, thanks to the “magic” of targeting on the internet, we discovered that there was going to be a Bitcoin conference in Riga so… Why not go?
We became super excited on that, because this trip was going to represent the return of long haul travelling after the COVID Pan(Scam)demic, plus a huge opportunity of going deeper into the rabbit hole and keep learning about the only real money and meeting like minded people of the community to keep improving our knowledge.
So without any doubt, we bought the conference and plane tickets, we booked an airbnb place in the centre of Riga (BTW amazing host), and we started the journey to a couple of days of intense learning.
**Table Of Content**
- Day1: Spanish meetup at Basement bar
- Day2: Layer 2 Day, in a warehouse!
- Day3: Conference first session plus afterparty!
- Day4: Conference second session and Nostr party!
- Day5: Drinking coffee at the airport next to…
- Conclusions
- FAQ
**Day1: Spanish meetup at Basement bar**
After arriving in Riga coming from different destinations, we had a bitter sweet sensation: one of our guy’s luggage had been lost by Air Baltic. This didn’t stop our plans, so after making the claim, we jumped into a Bolt (Latvian version of Uber/Grab/Didi) and we headed to our airbnb. The first day had already started with “Noob Day” -basically explaining the basics of Bitcoin- but we weren’t able to make it, so we had a little rest and went to the Spanish Meetup at Basement Bar.
Some of our guys speak the language of the FIFA World Champions (Men & Women), so there was a nice opportunity to interact with the Spanish speaking bitcoin community. We thought that was gonna be only drinks and chat but no: one of the organisers “Luna” proposed something interesting: he picked up 4 chairs, but only 3 people were allowed to be seated. The people on the chairs started discussing some topic, and if someone in the audience thought that they had some authority to talk about it, he/she could sit in the empty chair and one of the previous ones would have to stand up.
This activity led to some interesting talks, like current situation of bitcoin in spanish speaking region (specially in Argentina where the most likely to be next president Javier Milei seems to be a pro bitcoin political -we will discuss more in other article-), what is going to trigger the massive adoption, and how bitcoin has helped us to understand the world and cope with uncertainty times like the COVID19 lockdowns and restrictions.
Of course, during the talk, you were able to buy amazing drinks and local beers…. Using the power of lightning network and paying with SATS!
**Day2: Layer 2 Day, in a warehouse!**
When we arrived at the venue of the Day 2, we thought we were wrong: from the outside, it was a warehouse that was fully dedicated to collecting donations for Ukraine. But inside the magic was there: a stage, chairs and a projection screen ready to show us how deep the rabbit hole is.
The exhibitors were showing multiple applications built for bitcoin layer 2: mostly wallets, and other ones that we barely understood. Even though we understand the tech basis of bitcoin, the exhibitors were at another level of knowledge and we had to do a super huge effort in order to understand a bit of what they were exposing. We really felt like noobs, but this motivated us to learn more: in the upcoming weeks we will be doing more research to understand what they were talking about.
In the venue you were able to buy coffee and food… using SATS, and we met the one and only “Bitcoineta”: a van that travels around europe with two argentinians on board, on the quest of educating people about bitcoin. Inside of the ban they have a wall with autographs of the OGs (Michael Saylor signature is there) and also with another sector dedicated to the “Plebs”.
The van is fully plotted with bitcoin artwork made by an amazing artist and has slogans like “Bitcoin is Hope”. We learned that this van is a project that started in Argentina, and besides Argentinean and European ones there is another “Bitcoineta” in South Africa. The guys are super friendly and let everyone take pictures of the van. We hope we can release an article about this in the future.
We had to leave the meeting early because the luggage of our friend was going to be delivered, plus, that was going to be the only day dedicated to walking around the city, before the real conference started.
**Day3: Conference first session plus afterparty!**
So finally the “official” conference started on saturday. The venue was amazing. There were 3 stages
- **Main stage:** where mainstream topics were presented, with live streaming for all over the world.
- **POW stage:** also streamed. On this stage there were live demos of developments like wallets and nostr apps.
- **Cypherpunk stage:** here was the place where the most controversial topics were spoken. For that reason this one was not streamed and you were warned not to take photos or videos to respect privacy. If you were caught doing this, you would be escorted out of the venue and banned from Baltic Honeybadger FOREVER!
Outside the conference you could find nice food trucks where to buy delicious meals and pay with SATS!
All the exhibitions were amazing, but the best ones where:
- “The Problem of Bitcoin Midwits”, by Giacomo Zucco, very funny, full of memes to start the day.
- “The Financialization of Bitcoin: The Good, the Bad, the Inevitable”, by Dylan Leclair, exposing with analytics the problem of US debt and how Bitcoin is here to change the game
- “When 100K?”, a panel with Tuur Deemester, Dylan Leclair, Adam Back, Rahim Taghizadegan. In this panel, Adam Back said that Bitcoin will reach 100k before halving!
Also there were amazing chats in the Cypherpunk stage, but respecting the privacy we will not disclose.
After the day 1, an amazing afterparty was held in the venue, with open bar, where you can pick up drinks and do networking with other “honeybadgers”
**Day4: Conference second session and Nostr party!**
Second “official” conference day was another blast. We were also able to explore the venue and to check the exhibitors. Even though there were not too many stands, all of the ones were interesting. Our favourite was the mempool one.
Talking about the talks we attend, our favourites of the day were:
- ” Bitcoin Empowers Africa and Africans Empower Bitcoin”, by Anita Posch, a super inspiring speech about how Bitcoin is giving hope to unbanked African communities, and how teaching people about Bitcoin can lead to a better world.
- ”Building on Nostr”, by Jeff Gardner, literally building a web app to ask questions using Nostr. Really entertaining, because we asked our own questions through the platform.
- ”The Hidden Hamster Wheel in your mind”, by Rob Brinded, even though the final was not too clear, showed us interesting things about how our mind sometimes plays against ourselves.
- ”The fiat crisis”, by Balaji (remotely), a deep dive into history and how we have arrived at the current crisis.
Unfortunately, we were tired and our flight the following morning was too early, so we couldn’t go to the Nostr party
**Day5: Drinking coffee at the airport next to…**
On the way back home, we were having a coffee at the airport next to the gate before boarding when we saw that next to us had just sat the one and only Adam Back. Incredible how this man (Satoshi Nakamoto maybe?), that probably without other people changed the world and was involved in the genesis of Bitcoin, was walking around with total humbleness and not being recognized by anyone. This is the philosophy of bitcoin: stay humble, stack sats.
**Conclusions**
Baltic Honeybadger 2023 was a blast, it exceeded our expectations about the conference. The quality of the speakers, the deep topics discussed plus the beauty of Riga made it unique and amazing, and worth the time and money invested. We learned a lot about Bitcoin from the real OGs of the space, knowledge that we will be putting for our readers in our newsletter in the upcoming sessions.
If you want to learn about Bitcoin, you need to study and educate yourself, because no school is going to teach about a tool that makes you really free, so the best way is to invest time and money and attend the conferences where the people who know the most about a topic speak!
**FAQ**
**Is the Baltic Honeybadger hosted every year?**
Yes, this conference started a couple of years ago, was stopped because of COVID restrictions and returned in 2022. And we can’t wait to be there again in 2024.
**What are the upcoming Bitcoin Conferences?**
The biggest Bitcoin events in the upcoming months will be: Bitcoin Indonesia in October (our team is going), Nostrasia in Tokyo and Hong Kong during November (will be mostly about Nostr) and next year in March will be the Bitcoin Conference in Madeira, Portugal (Where CR7 was born, we don’t know if he will attend, but as Messi plays in a team which promotes a shitcoin, he should:p)
**Do they talk about other coins?**
No way! As it’s stated on their website “Not promoting crypto, various so-called altcoins, tokens and other blockchain-based "snake oil"”. So only and pure bitcoin content by OGs. At the end of the day, there is no second beest.
**That's all for today**
**If you want more, be sure to follow us on:**
**NOSTR: croxroad@getalby.com**
**X: [@croxroadnews](https://x.com/croxroadnewsco)**
**Instagram: [@croxroadnews.co](https://www.instagram.com/croxroadnews.co/)**
**Youtube: [@croxroadnews](https://www.youtube.com/@croxroadnews)**
**Store: https://croxroad.store**
**Subscribe to CROX ROAD Bitcoin Only Daily Newsletter**
**https://www.croxroad.co/subscribe**
*DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.*