Privacy prevails and cypherpunks write code at Baltic Honeybadger

Bitcoin’s tone carnal is the chromatic badger. Bitcoin evangelist turned Bitcoin Cash promoter Roger Ver archetypal popularized the meme successful 2013 erstwhile helium paid $1,500 a period for a billboard successful California to show “Bitcoin is the Honey Badger of Money.” 

Since then, the chromatic badger has been an elusive beast, occasionally appearing in memes and tweets arsenic good arsenic astatine its yearly hunt connected the Baltic Coast of Europe.

A Baltic Honeybadger sighting excites adjacent the astir hardcore Bitcoiners. Living connected a fare of reddish nutrient and Latvian beer, lurking adjacent cypherpunk stages and often spotted skulking implicit a machine surface checking and rewriting lines of code, the Baltic Honeybadger allures cypherpunks and Bitcoin (BTC) advocates alike.

Content creators Rikki and Laura airs with the chromatic badger. Source: Bitcoin Explorers

The Baltic Honeybadger league began successful 2017 erstwhile speakers Andreas Antonopoulos and Elizabeth Stark graced the stage. As “the astir OG Bitcoin conference,” the Riga-based lawsuit elevates privacy, anti-surveillance and cypherpunk principles. 

Privacy is simply a quality right

These morals materialized connected the Cypherpunk Stage. Frequently packed oregon with lasting country only, the Cypherpunk Stage was strictly off-limits for cameras, signaling devices and unrecorded streams.

A squad of “Bitcoin Bears” (aka, information personnel) watched implicit the Honeybadger audience. No media, tweets oregon photos would task onto the net — each the enactment remained successful the room.

Entrance to the Cypherpunk Stage. Source: Bitcoin Lyon, Aurore

During the league opening, Max Keidun, laminitis of Honeybadger and CEO of Hodl Hodl and Debifi, announced that immoderate guests recovered signaling oregon photographing the Cypherpunk Stage would beryllium thrown retired of the league and banned from Honeybadger for life. He added: 

These principles permeated passim the conference. Many attendees wore badges stating their tendency to debar photos, the league goodie container included a privacy-centric bandana, and it was communal to perceive radical inquire 1 another, “Are you doxed?” — fundamentally meaning, “Is your individuality shared oregon concealed online?”

Freedom of code was besides important. One of the Cypherpunk Stage talks by Bitcoin activistic Rikki compared immoderate aspects of Bitcoin successful El Salvador to cardinal slope integer currencies.

Giacomo Zucco, a Bitcoin educator, described however “midwits” tin get successful the mode of Bitcoin. With comedic intentions, helium highlighted that lower-intelligence Bitcoin advocates, oregon “80 IQ plebs,” are a unit for good, portion “midwits” travel up implicit nuance and neglect to spot the bigger picture.

Nonetheless, contempt its OG allure, the Honeybadger could beryllium nether menace of extinction. Many Bitcoin conferences astir the satellite person been converted into societal media moments and selfie opportunities acknowledgment to the increasing mainstream glamor of Bitcoin and the propulsion of telegenic Bitcoin advocates specified arsenic Michael Saylor, Natalie Brunell and Jack Mallers onto tv screens crossed the United States.

Indeed, Rigel Walshe of Swan Bitcoin said the Bitcoin 2021 league successful Miami felt similar a Christian stone festival. Why other would thousands of young radical travel unneurotic to ticker crusty aged guys speech astir esoteric principles specified arsenic dependable wealth oregon salvation, helium joked.

Rigel Walshe compared and contrasted Bitcoin and religion.

If Miami’s Bitcoin league was a stone festival, Honeybadger was a dive bar, wherever thing was up for discussion, from atomic warfare to Miniscript, from quality rights to hamster wheels. (Yes, each of these topics were discussed during talks.)

Furthermore, dissimilar the ample crypto conferences, Bitcoin’s terms was seldom spoken of—sparing 1 sheet connected the archetypal day. The discussion, “When 100K?,” saw Blockstream CEO Adam Back treble down connected his assertion that Bitcoin would deed all-time highs earlier the Bitcoin halving successful April 2024. The sheet yet evolved into a speech astir macroeconomics.

Lightning strikes Riga

As with each Bitcoin conferences, the broadside events and offstage shenanigans stole the show. The squad from Nostr, a decentralized protocol whose archetypal iteration proposes an alternate to X (formerly Twitter), hosted events and dominated discussion.

A enactment organized and fundraised via Nostr Zaps — Bitcoin tips implicit Nostr — closed retired the weekend. All funds to enactment the unfastened bar, bargain pizzas and sponsor a unrecorded amusement with rented instruments were crowdfunded and zapped implicit the Lightning Network successful the days starring up to the conference.

Derek Ross, a Nostr developer, explained that “purple-pilling” goes manus successful manus with “orange-pilling” during different talk. Being orange-pilled means knowing Bitcoin, portion being purple-pilled means knowing Nostr.

Francis introduces Chain Duel.

Elsewhere, Portuguese programmer Francis acceptable up a Chain Duel tournament. Chain Duel is simply a societal Bitcoin crippled that combines elements of the 90s classical Snake with satoshis, the smallest denomination of Bitcoin. While the crippled appears easy, it is addictive and competitive. 

Players registered connected Chain Duel by sending satoshis to the in-game Lightning Network address with a outgo enactment arsenic their name. The victor of the tourney took location the cookware of 1,520,000 satoshis, valued astatine much than $300.

Lightning-enabled interactions were a salient diagnostic passim Honeybadger. All the league nutrient trucks accepted Bitcoin and Bitcoin Lightning payments, and each merchant who spoke with Cointelegraph commented that it’s easier and faster to wage with Lighting than paper payments. Plus, Lightning avoids the fees charged by Mastercard and Visa.

In total, much than 1.1 BTC ($27,600) was paid implicit Lightning implicit the people of the conference. BTCPay Server, the squad down the outgo terminals, shared the statistic connected societal media.

Honeybadger’s Lightning-enabled paper racing against idiosyncratic else’s NFC paper astatine a java truck.

Basement Bar, a Latvian barroom successful the metropolis center, was swarmed with Bitcoin enthusiasts keen to wage successful satoshis. As a Bitcoin-friendly location, it became the de facto hang-out spot implicit the play arsenic customers tapped, zapped and scanned Bitcoin arsenic their chosen means of payment.

Indeed, the Bitcoin-critic meme “No 1 uses Lightning” was undermined by events, treatment and enactment astatine Baltic Honeybadger. The connection “Lightning” featured successful 8 of the talks, and discussions ranged from Breez CEO Roy Sheinfeld explaining offline payments to explanations of astute contracts connected Lightning and Synota CEO Austin Mitchell explaining that “Lightning is transactive energy.”

Sam Wouters, a Bitcoin probe expert astatine River, summed up Lightning’s concern with respect to the Bitcoin network:

In all, the Baltic Honeybadger league replaced headline-grabbing announcements acquainted to ample Bitcoin conferences with backroom discussions and debates. Privacy took precedence implicit photograph opportunities, portion fiat payments were outstripped by Lightning.

Baltic Honeybadger was a telephone to enactment for cypherpunk principles. It’s sometimes forgotten that Satoshi Nakamoto, the laminitis of Bitcoin, was besides a cypherpunk. They did not uncover their individuality and disappeared the infinitesimal Bitcoin made a determination into the mainstream.