Bitcoin 2022 was a celebration of all the good that Bitcoin promises from promoting financial inclusion to freeing human potential through sound money free from political corruption.
Michael Moro from Genesis Global Trading noted that the first institutions investing were “a guy in a basement with an LLC,” and later, “Silicon Valley venture capitalists and their family offices.” In 2021, blue-chip Wall Street companies including BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase all made major steps toward Bitcoin adoption.
On the other side of the coin, Bitcoin’s inclusiveness and openness to the unbanked was a major theme of the conference just as it was at last year’s conference.
Numerous speakers touched on bitcoin’s strong appeal in the developing world where millions of people cannot rely upon a stable native currency — something we take for granted in the United States.
Alex Gladstein, who serves as the chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, declared that Bitcoin is about “freedom go up.” Yeonmi Park, a defector from North Korea, explained how, in her birth country, women are not allowed to have bank accounts and are sold into sexual slavery.
While Novagratz warned that populism will debase fiat currencies, Bitcoin’s decentralized network gives everyone around the world a way to store value in an increasingly valuable asset that cannot be debased.
Lummis argued that this approach to privately issued stablecoins and wholesale CBDCs is a more American approach than the digital yuan CBDC, which she claimed was being used as a tool of surveillance.
While Lummis has been a political pioneer, other politicians are now realizing that they must reckon with a quickly growing voting block that demands representatives who support Bitcoin.
Mallers argued in a colorful speech that credit card payment technology has been stagnant for 50 years and that the Bitcoin Lightning Network his company facilitates will soon be disrupting this industry at major retailers.
Mike Levitt, CEO of Core Scientific, posited that as the Bitcoin network keeps doubling in size, its use case will win out and people will agree that spending energy to maintain the security of the blockchain is a worthwhile endeavor.
But the real story of Bitcoin 2022 is that the founding philosophy of Bitcoin is strong, giving financial agency to those who have been deprived of it, being adopted by institutions, and respected by politicians and nations.