This past week, Bitcoin Magazine landed in Europe for the first time for its annual Bitcoin conference. Indeed, Bitcoin 2022 took place in Amsterdam.
Naturally, there was plenty of news about Bitcoin to report. WANT editor Robert Kroes attended and shares five developments with you.
Lightning Network test passed
Several sponsors were present at the event. Their efforts allowed visitors to choose whether to pay for their purchases and refreshments during the fair with Euros or crypto. In 3 days, the Lightning Network processed 4,000 transactions without any problems.
These had a combined value of 1.56 BTC, or an average of EUR 8 per transaction. This proves the Lightning Network’s value and future potential.
Bitcoin takes care of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange
One of the pillars behind the creation of Bitcoin was the desire to be able to make payments without third-party involvement. This became necessary when major payment providers such as Visa, Mastercard and PayPal refused to process donations to WikiLeaks.
As a result, WikiLeaks became the first organization to accept donations in Bitcoin as early as 2011. Assange’s wife Stella gave an impressive speech where she addressed her husband’s plight and the great benefits Bitcoin offered them. You can watch the entire interview with Stella Assange below.
Bitcoin provides Peer-to-Peer payments in Venzuela
Another objective of Bitcoin was to simplify payments for people who do not have bank accounts. This too was talked about during Bitcoin Amsterdam.
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López attended and was interviewed. He explained that although Bitcoin is seen as a luxury, more and more people are using BTC as a means of payment. By 2021, 10.3% of the population owned crypto.
BTC as a way out of debt?
One of the problems in today’s economy is ever-rising inflation. In a panel discussion, participants addressed whether Bitcoin is now a hedge against inflation. An interesting theory explained how the current monetary system is actually a pyramid scheme as long as the global economy is not growing at 12% per year.
As long as that growth is not achieved more debt will be created. As a result, interest rates will rise and the required rate of growth will increase and thus be even further out of reach, necessitating new debt. You can follow that discussion in this post.
Room for dissent
Even though the atmosphere was obviously pro Bitcoin, opponents were also given the floor. For example, Jemima Kelly, columnist for the Financial Times and Bitcoin opponent explained that there are crypto with better features and also that there is no scarcity, because Bitcoin would be too little distinctive from other crypto currencies. This led to an interesting panel discussion.
All in all, we can conclude that despite the disappointing exchange rates, Bitcoin seems to have won its place in the financial world by now and has enough user cases to (continue to) play an important role in the future.
Stay up to date on the latest price developments?
You can always follow the developments yourself with our WANT analyses and overviews. Of course, you can also follow BTC and live cryptocurrencies 24 hours a day if you want to stay updated in real time.
Note: We never give financial advice, so you can’t interpret our contributions that way either. Always do your own research and decide on rational grounds if, when, what and how much you want to invest.
