Technical discussions take center stage at the Advancing Bitcoin conference in London

by James · March 6, 2023

Bitcoin (BTC) bear market makers gathered in London, UK, during the only Bitcoin conference “Advancing Bitcoin”.

Common Bitcoin conference parlance, words like “macro”, “shitcoin” or “debt spiral” were absent from the debate, replaced by computer science terms; words like “OP_return”, “nonce” and “ordinals” dominated the discussion. The two-day developer conference was technical and thoughtful, a place to get your hands dirty writing code.

Fed’s Leon Johnson organized and started the conference. Source: michaelayophotography79

Leon Johnson, a conference organizer and chief operating officer at Bitcoin company Fedi, told Cointelegraph that the conference is entering its fourth year and the profile of attendees has slowly evolved:

“In 2019, we had a lot of what I would call hobbyists, enthusiasts, tinders. And those same people have now sort of evolved to work for Bitcoin companies.”

True to its name, the conference has advanced Bitcoin hobbyists to Bitcoin companies. Gaming company Zebedee, for example, spun off from interactions on Advancing Bitcoin, Johnson explained.

Alex Leishman, CEO of River, a US-based Bitcoin accumulation and lighting company, told Cointelegraph that the event is a high-quality arena for builders:

“It’s nice to be in workshops and presentations that really dig into the weeds and the inner workings of the innovations that are happening in the space, whether it’s word of mouth, lightning networks, protocol upgrades, and what these mean for the user experience and for improving the actual products that we all trying to build.”

Developers and computer scientists pounded away at their keyboards throughout the conference. Participants as young as ten constructed hardware wallets from scratch, spun up code and interrogated the blockchain and Bitcoin Mempool. A whole day was dedicated exclusively to workshops.

Cointelegraph’s Joe Hall was a conference participant. Source: michaelayophotography79

Echoing comments from other developers and computer scientists, Johnson emphasized that progress is good, but the layer-2 Lightning Network is still in its infancy and Bitcoin is a teenager with almost 15 years of existence. So what does Bitcoin need to mature?

“Bitcoin needs people. We need more than speculators. We need people who care about applications.”

Eric Sirion, co-founder of Fedi and maintainer of the Fedimint protocol agreed: “Don’t gamble – it’s a bear market and bear markets are for building.” It’s time to “get out there and inspire people,” he suggested.

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Uncle Rockstar (not his real name), the mastermind behind some of Bitcoin company Strike’s inner workings that built out the Lightning Network integration with El Salvador’s Chivo wallet, wrapped up the first day of talks. Instead of delving deeper into technical specifications, as with the other talks, Rockstar chose to dismiss, reassure and motivate developers, especially those working with free and open source software (FOSS).

Uncle Rockstar (choosing to hide his features, gives a speech) Source: Alex Waltz

Bear markets can burn out the best of us, he explained during his lecture. “It’s OK to take a break and pick up a fiat job before going back to the building.” Leishman agrees:

“I think Bitcoin is going to be the money of the world, going to change everything completely. We can accelerate that if we’re smart about how we approach it.”

With the Bitcoin price continuing to wallow in the low 20,000s, the bear market continues to grind on. Advancing Bitcoin recently announced its intention to travel to Málaga with the concept in the fall. The Spain edition focuses on companies and institutions and will have less developer focus.