Bitcoin 2022 Recap, GA Day 2. Afternoon: Peterson, Alden, Weinstein, Stark & More

And here it is, the bitter end of the Bitcoin 2022 coverage. As we said in the previous post, the afternoon was disappointing, to say the least. The conference’s organizers took their shot with big-name guests from the so-called “Intellectual Dark Web” and they missed. Both Jordan Peterson and Eric Weinstein misunderstood the assignment and barely spoke about bitcoin. Did they present interesting ideas? Maybe. They weren’t bitcoin-related, though.

On a positive note, Nathalie Brunel hosted the afternoon session. She didn’t shine as bright as when she was behind the news desk, but Brunel kept it classy and kept it moving. Plus, the Petrodollar panel was great, and the youngest bitcoin developers out there gave us hope for the future.

Bitcoin 2022 * Fail

• “Jordan Peterson Fireside” with Jordan Peterson.

This man did not talk about bitcoin. And host Tuur Demeester did nothing about it.

• “Mike Novogratz Keynote” with Mike Novogratz.

Why was this man on stage again? Pompliano interviewed him on Bitcoin 2022’s first day. Was it necessary for him to come back? Did he have a special announcement or a mind-blowing idea to share? No. He spoke for half an hour and said nothing interesting or noteworthy.

• “Fix the money, to Leave the world” with Eric Weinstein and Abraham (Avi) Loeb.

Let’s be honest, Eric Weinstein just wanted bitcoiners to fund his friend space project. Judging by the reactions over at Twitter, he didn’t succeed in winning their hearts. Needless to say, these two didn’t talk about bitcoin at all.

BTC price chart on Bitbay | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

Bitcoin 2022 * Rebalancing The World

• “The Unwinding Of The Petrodollar” with Lyn Alden, Fred Thiel, Matthew Pines, Avik Roy, and host Stephan Livera.

A prediction by Marathon’s Fred Thiel: We will soon see countries putting bitcoin on their balance sheet. According to him, soon, bitcoin adoption will creep into every aspect of trade, finance, commerce, everything. When it comes to the US, though, Thiel’s view is not as positive. “We have yet to see real inflation, we are early on in this game.” 

Avik Roy makes the case for bitcoin becoming the world’s reserve currency. According to him, China doesn’t want the burden of the Yuan taking that place. And, currently, the US Dollar is not a proper store of value. And neither is the Euro. In fact, the entire fiat system is not a store of value. When it comes to the US, though, Roy’s view is not as positive. “What’s coming will be a challenging time.” 

Bitcoin Policy Institute’s Matthew Pines believes that bitcoin is the solution to an ever increasing problem. It’s a neutral asset that can help the world rebalance its books.  We need to reset the system, and only bitcoin can do it in a positive way. According to Pines, bitcoin is “the reserve asset for the people.”

As usual, the star of the show was Lyn Alden. According to her, currently, the US economy is too small for the dollar to keep being the world’s reserve currency. It’s not only that technology and the exporting of jobs shrunk it,  it’s competitors have also grown. She also thinks the world can rebalance using bitcoin. Also, as bitcoin gets bigger, it can steal away market share from many other assets, not only gold as it’s usually described.

Bitcoin 2022 * The Future

• “Bitcoinizing the world: The Future of Lightning” with Elizabeth Stark, Ishaana Misra, and Autumn Domingo.

As Bitcoinist said in our first report, one of the main Bitcoin 2022 topics was stablecoins over the Lightning Network. And Taro by Lightning Labs is a big part of that equation. For this panel, the company’s CEO, Elizabeth Stark, brought two of the youngest bitcoin developers out there with her to shake things up. They also promoted the stablecoins over the Lightning Network idea, but that was to be expected. 

They all met at a BitDevs meetup. Ishaana Misra is 14 and it’s the youngest contributor to Bitcoin core. Autumn Domingo is 17 and founded the “Generation Bitcoin” group to connect bitcoiners her age. After answering a few questions about themselves and the projects they’re working on to bitcoinize the world, the girls interviewed Stark.

The first activity that Elizabeth Stark mentioned is to make “bitcoinize” a verb. Definitely achievable. According to Stark, passion is what sets the bitcoin community apart. What is her passion, though? The Lightning Network. And Stark thinks Lightning is giving the world access to a payment network like no other, and that will eventually lead up to financial freedom. 

About Taro and the stablecoins on the Lightning Network idea, Stark thinks it’ll make bitcoin the global transactional currency. “It’s all bitcoin,” she argues. The Lightning Network is faster, cheaper, and more interoperable than anything out there. It’s far superior and offers far better access. When it was starting, Stark declared the 20s as “the decade of Lightning.” Two years in, it seems like she was right.

Featured Image: Elizabeth Stark on stage, screenshot from this video | Charts by TradingView

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