Baltic Honeybadger 2022: For Bitcoiners, The Yield Is The Guests We Contain Alongside The Ability

That is an conception editorial by Josef Tětek, the Trezor stamp ambassador for SatoshiLabs.

After a three-year hiatus, Bitcoiners over all yet again met on the enduring Baltic Honeybadger occasion within the Latvian capital of Riga.

Around 800 of us attended the convention, so it used to be a fairly little occasion — by comparability, the Bitcoin 2022 convention in Miami welcomed over 20,000 friends. Nonetheless, the asserting that “little is intellectual” utilized on this case -— when compared to the Miami convention, friends at Honeybadger did not must apprehension about endless crowds and queues. Nevertheless on the same time, it used to be a convention with world notoriety and one that used to be held entirely in English, so there used to be no inform attending bright-hitting talks and later speaking to successfully-identified Bitcoiners like Adam Aid, Jimmy Song, Peter Todd, Gigi and a range of others. Several dozen audio system gave presentations over the two days in two school rooms: the vital Bitcoin Stage, and the secondary Sats Stage.

Your total convention used to be filmed and the recordings will likely be on hand on the Hodl Hodl YouTube channel (on the time of writing, easiest the Bitcoin Stage talks had been printed).

Free Speech And Free Money

After a gap speech by Max Keidun from Hodl Hodl (the convention organizer), Giacomo Zucco took the bottom. Zucco didn’t sigh the title of his talk beforehand, so the viewers had no belief what to await. Nonetheless, the long-time Bitcoiner, along with his attribute humor peppered with an Italian accent, did not disappoint this time as he revealed the speech title:

Nevertheless as Zucco readily acknowledged, this form of title might offend some, so he determined to impression it nicer:

Zucco explained that freedom of speech is a vital human upright to which we are able to easiest impression an exception when speech turns into recount aggression, as within the case of ordering a raze or deliberate fraud. He warned of the increasing stage of censorship by each and every governments and companies; basically the most easy brilliant self-defense is to create and exhaust agorist instruments such because the Tor browser.

Zucco then made a segue to money, which moreover falls below freedom of speech protection (especially in an age where money is overwhelmingly digital in nature) — of us have the vital upright to exhaust their financial instrument and exhaust their money as they ogle match. Nonetheless, as with freedom of speech, freedom of money is not very guaranteed: all yet again, agorist instruments equivalent to bitcoin and the bitcoin ecosystem should be constructed. A quote price remembering:

“Know-your-customer licensed pointers imply that you don’t sign economics. The total point of money is that you don’t must know your customer.”

Bitcoin And Islamic Finance

One other talk price staring at is “Bitcoin And Islamic Finance” by Allen Farrington. Farrington is the co-creator of “Bitcoin Is Venice,” which in my behold is one in all the very most productive books written on bitcoin and economics.

Based on Farrington, Islamic finance has change into a extra or less a Bitcoin meme: we customarily consult with the belief without neatly working out its tenets. Nonetheless, we can must composed impression the be troubled to be taught extra about Islamic finance, because its strategies are nearly the last observe antithesis of stylish fiat money, and are in accordance to how the area would likely feature on a bitcoin long-established.

The three vital tenets of Islamic finance are:

• Possibility is shared between trading companions, not transferred
• Collateral is transferred between the events, not financialised
• The spirit of the law is predominant, not the letter of the law

The of these strategies is that, as an instance, it is not very imaginable to accept a mortgage backed by sure collateral and composed have the same collateral on hand for exhaust by the borrower (as is the case with mortgages).

While you seek for the mortgage-free world to be a wild belief, then it be price reminding that the over-financialization of real property precipitated each and every the Big Monetary Disaster of 2007 to 2008, and moreover made a lifetime debt slave out of virtually all americans who needs to hold their very hold homes:

“The aversion to financialization in islamic finance comes from the elegant easy belief that there can must composed be a one-to-one relationship between a financial instrument and the underlying real-economic system asset. The extra this ratio diverges, the less real finance turns into and the extra we discontinuance up building a house of playing cards that can certainly at some point soon collapse.”

–Farrington

Bitcoin is shut to the tips of Islamic finance because when it is susceptible as a transaction instrument or collateral, it needs to be in truth susceptible and sent to the counterparty’s address (the normal not your keys, not your coins). The compatibility between bitcoin (i.e., within the belief of “commodity money”) and Islamic finance is not very unintended, as these strategies have evolved over a whole bunch of years below the gold long-established and a system of commerce that relied heavily on service provider reputation.

Nonetheless, in inequity to within the Western world, these strategies have survived to on the present time in Islamic finance, as they’ve change into allotment of the faith and thus ethics of the Islamic world. Nevertheless, as Farrington identified, the tips themselves shall be utilized commence air of any spiritual context — they’re merely sound financial strategies.

Safety And Hardware Wallets

One other principal theme of the convention used to be staunch bitcoin self custody, a subject that’s inherently linked to the industries of hardware wallets and physical backups. These industries had been represented by the founders of Trezor, BitBox, Cryptosteel and Tinyseed, who had been all fresh in Riga.

The belief that of air gapping used to be discussed on two circumstances: within the panel on security, and in Douglas Bakkum’s lecture. Bakkum defined air gapping as a impression of information transfer between hardware wallets and computer systems/phones the exhaust of SD playing cards or QR codes (i.e., not through USB cables). Addressing SD playing cards, Peter Todd popular that these devices now reach with complex microprocessors that doubtlessly have a great wider field of attack than USB cables. Stick added that QR codes, not SD playing cards, shall be regarded as the beautiful formulation for air gapping this present day; and moreover that the likelihood with USB cables tends to be the reverse of what some might apprehension, i.e., with USB devices attacking the host (computer or phone), not the different procedure spherical. 

“We can must composed be alive to on security likelihood modeling. I mediate that the security likelihood mannequin of long-established of us is extraordinarily more than just a few from that of Edward Snowden’s as an instance. And what we are attempting to model is to care for the considerations of 99% of of us, but can must that you would be succesful to have three-letter agencies coming after you, I agree you might be the exhaust of something very more than just a few than the off-the-shelf alternatives.”

–Stick

Bitcoin Counterculture And Its Psychopathic Defenders

Rigel Walshe (of Swan Bitcoin) devoted his consult with Bitcoin custom. Based on Walshe, not all americans is of the same opinion that Bitcoin represents a convention at all, on the other hand, as he mentioned, “While you accumulate a few of us collectively, you accumulate a convention.” 

And Bitcoin custom is most productive described as a counterculture, that’s, a subculture revolving spherical the filled with life opposition to sure substances of the mainstream custom. The destiny of a success countercultures is that in due route they change into allotment of the mainstream: Walshe gave the examples of the upward push of punk, hip-hop, marijuana and LGBT subcultures. This transition from counterculture to mainstream custom is accompanied by phenomena that shall be understood through three sociological theories:

1. Mimetic Conception: Most of us undertake the needs of feature units, and then imitate their habits. Many latecomers to the subculture can’t adequately sigh why they suspect about what they suspect about — they might be able to easiest repeat what others are asserting and flip up the quantity, customarily upping every other in extremist statements. Tribalism and purity tests come up.
2. Geeks, Mops And Sociopaths Conception: Describes how unusual strategies change into chilly. Frigid issues launch with creators (Satoshi Nakamoto), that are helped by enthusiasts (Laszlo Hanyecz, Andreas Antonopoulos) who spread the observe and create the infrastructure. Then reach the mops: these who take within the factual stuff but make contributions shrimp (varied Twitter influencers reach to mind here). The last community are customarily the sociopaths who exploit your whole subculture for his or her beneficial properties (Richard Heart, Lift out Kwon).
3. The Everlasting September Conception: Within the early ’90s, the derive (or fairly, Usenet) used to be predominantly accessed through universities, and every September, it used to be swamped by college beginners who didn’t know what they had been doing and needed to be taught by the veterans from old years. The “everlasting September” came when, within the mid-’90s, the derive began to be susceptible by regular households and noobs started coming in droves daily. Bitcoin is experiencing this stage, with waves and waves of unusual users unable to attain the ideas of deepest keys and various beforehand unseen substances.

In conclusion, Walshe identified that there’s a trade off between numbers and nuance, and basically the most easy resolution is to envision out to resolve out what the core strategies of Bitcoin custom that we must drawl on unusual users are, and flip these into memes, sound bites and digestible items of information.

“So it’s on us to distill these strategies, and to disseminate these strategies to the beginners that are coming aboard and to the sociopaths that can exhaust bitcoin for his or her hold sinister ends to protect it. And protect it like a fucking psychopath.” 

–Walshe

The talks described above are upright a taste of the gigantic convention program, which featured over 40 particular person lectures and discussion panels. I’m particular I’ll seek for extra treasures within the recordings within the coming weeks — as in old years, the audio system had a lot to claim and I feel about we’ll be returning to a few the talks years from now. Let’s state, my licensed talk from the 2019 edition is “Social Impacts Of Gold And Bitcoin.”

Convention Bulletins

For the length of the Honeybadger occasion, several principal announcements had been made:

Trezor CoinJoin Implementation: Trezor and Wasabi Pockets are joining forces to introduce the CoinJoin anonymization technique for hardware wallets early subsequent year. Trezor homeowners will likely be in a area to combine their coins the exhaust of the WabiSabi protocol without their coins leaving the staunch atmosphere of the hardware wallet. That is the vital implementation of its model and a factual revolution in Bitcoin anonymity.

BTCPay CoinJoin Implementation (moreover the exhaust of the WabiSabi protocol): This skill that a service provider or a fundraiser organizer can obfuscate the transaction historic past of any purchased bitcoin — here is posthaste turning into a welcome and an acute exhaust case, because the fresh protests of Canadian truckers illustrated.

Trezor Suite, Hodl Hodl Shopping and selling Supplies: For a whereas now, it has been imaginable to retract and promote bitcoin at as soon as in Trezor Suite, the native interface of the Trezor hardware wallet. Until now, on the other hand, these styles of offers required the users to own a KYC identification. For the length of the convention, a partnership with the Hodl Hodl decentralized alternate used to be announced; rapidly it’ll be imaginable to retract bitcoin at as soon as from particular person sellers, thus without the necessity for identification. 

Prince Philip Of Serbia Joining Jan3 As CSO: Samson Mow’s Jan3 is a Bitcoin firm with the mission to hotfoot up hyperbitcoinization, and Prince Philip of Serbia has joined its ranks as chief technique officer.

Fun Off Stage

As is the case at many conferences, most of the fun used to be had a ways from the stages. Even even though Honeybadger used to be a comparatively little convention, it attracted dozens of successfully-identified Bitcoiners, and the audio system did not have their very hold deepest VIP allotment (set up for a little refreshment room), so they moved among the many attendees and engaged in fruitful conversations.

For me in my opinion, basically the most bright discussion used to be the one I had with the aforementioned Farrington, where I had nice fun talking referring to the writing route of of “Bitcoin is Venice” and of “A Narrative of Two Talebs” (I hope to have overjoyed Farrington to publish the latter in guide impression as successfully!).

It used to be moreover nice to ogle one in all the fathers of bitcoin, Adam Aid, wearing a BTCPay Server hoodie:

 Within the exhibition space, attendees might consult with of us from Braiins, Mempool.Residence (I purchased a groovy fragment of swag from softsimon!), Cryptosteel, Tinyseed, IVPN, Peach, SeedSigner, BTCTKVR, Satochip, Debifi — whereas Jimmy Song, Daniel Prince and Knut Svanholm equipped autographed books.

What’s Subsequent For Bitcoin In Europe?

Baltic Honeybadger used to be, until currently, the last observe bitcoin-easiest convention in Europe. In October, this case is incessantly trumped by Bitcoin Amsterdam. Then, that one is incessantly superseded by a yet larger occasion: BTC Prague.

That is a visitor publish by Josef Tětek. Opinions expressed are entirely their very hold and kind not basically replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.