Unless you live under the proverbial rock, you might have heard that the biggest Bitcoin Conference happened in Miami last week. Some of the biggest names in crypto and finance took to the stage to proclaim how bullish they are on Bitcoin and how Bitcoin is going to change the world, as well as plans they’ve developed to capitalize on this innovation, make it easier for consumers to get on board, and of course, how they’re going to make some money. Let’s continue with what happened at the Bitcoin conference.
Some key speakers included:
- Michael Saylor
- Cathie Wood
- Eric Weinstein
- Jack Maller
- Jordan Peterson
- Anthony Pompliano
- Alex Mashinksy
- And many more
During the three days the conference ran with around 25,000 people in attendance, booths and keynote speakers, and concerts, and all that. At the end of the day many wonder “what actually happened?” That’s what we’ll discuss below.
Saylor and Wood
One of the biggest players in the Bitcoin space is Michael Saylor who owns about 17, 732 BTC, a modest $730 million at today’s prices, and he took to the stage with Cathie Wood for a panel discussion. They didn’t agree on everything, but they do agree on a lot, mainly that Bitcoin is sound digital money that can be a hedge against inflation over a long time period. Cathie Wood and ARK investments predict that Bitcoin will be worth over $1 million per Bitcoin by the year 2030. Saylor says he’s more bullish on Bitcoin than he’s ever been and left the stage with the admonishment to the crowd “You don’t sell you Bitcoin”. Overall a very positive message and a strong case to get on the boat before it sets sails on the seas of mass adoption.
Robinhood
Robinhood has been a big player in the investing space since it launched. In 2018 it added the ability to trade Cryptocurrency but it didn’t give users the option of withdrawing their coins. At the conference however, their Chief Product Officer, Aparna Chennapragad, announced that Robinhood would be launching a crypto wallet, finally enabling users to buy and store crypto with their own private keys and also giving them the ability to send that crypto to another wallet or exchange. While technically still in a beta stage, with only about 2 million people having access, this is still a big announcement and will help get everyday investors into the crypto space.
Lightning Network
The Lightning Network is essentially a layer 2 scaling solution for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is transferred to Lightning Nodes and then transactions can happen on those nodes without having to be settled on the main Bitcoin blockchain. This increases transaction speed, as well as the total number of transactions that can take place. During the conference, a panel of experts discussed current issues the Lightning Network faces, solutions to those problems, as well as plans for big companies to start integrating with the Lightning Network to increase the number of nodes as well as liquidity on those nodes. There were some great ideas discussed and one goal is to make it so easy to run a node that every business would have their own Lightning Node to facilitate payments and transactions for their business. Overall, we’re looking at the Lightning Network becoming the go-to system for mass adoption crypto spending.
Cash App
Young people are moving away from banks more and more these days. With apps like PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App, people are starting to send money instantly and seamlessly. But over the past few years, these apps have only dipped their toes in the crypto space. Cash App intends to change that. Miles Suter announced a slew of new features they are releasing that will let users convert paychecks to Bitcoin, round off debit and credit card payments into Bitcoin, and receive payments through the Lightning Network. A very interesting development is their plan to use a single QR code for both on-chain transactions and Lightning transactions, which will mean less hassle in copying and pasting long Bitcoin addresses, and will also reduce the need for users to choose which rail to use for their transactions.
Strike
Perhaps the biggest announcement that has people the most excited was from Jack Maller, CEO of Strike. Maller took to the stage and after a brief discussion about how transaction payments have not seen any innovation for nearly 50 years, he dropped the bombshell. Strike has partnered with 3 of the world’s largest payment providers to enable Bitcoin payments at stores throughout the United States. Those companies being Shopify, NCR, and Blackhawk. Shopify is one of the biggest online store payment processor with a revenue of over $4 Billion last year. Nearly 7,000 businesses across the world rely on NCR across the world for their payment processing and Blackhawk is integrated with nearly 37,000 businesses, connecting nearly 300 million shoppers worldwide on a daily basis. This integration will allow companies like McDonald’s and Walmart to accept Bitcoin over the Lightning Network and not have to pay the standard 3% fee for the payment processing. This gives buyers more privacy as well as these payments can skip financial institutions all together. Using the Lightning Network is faster and cheaper than legacy banks and this is key stepping stone to bringing crypto to masses.
There was a significant amount of content at the Bitcoin Conference, far more than could be covered in a single article. I’d encourage you to peruse Bitcoin Magazines website and youtube channel to get a full list of all the different events and speakers that gave great speeches and announced very progressive ideas for the future. This is a very exciting time to be a crypto investor and while it might seem like you’ve missed the boat, I and many others believe we’ve yet to even scratch the surface of the opportunity iceberg that is crypto and blockchain.
The views expressed here are my own and don’t constitute financial advice. Please do your own research and consult your financial advisors and tax experts for any advice on personal investments.
