Bitcoin Day 2022 in Sioux Falls, SD

I was able to attend Bitcoin Day 2022 on May 21, 2022 this year. Thanks to Sioux Falls Bitcoin for the free ticket I won in a drawing. Many thanks to Frontier Bank and the many other sponsors for bringing this to Sioux Falls.

I bought my first part of a Bitcoin on January 23, 2014 at 11:22 on Coinbase with some fun money I was willing to lose. I was interested in blockchain technology, learned about it and realized the principles and economics made sense to me. I’ve been interested in it since then, I’ve traded into other things, gained a lot, lost some. I’ve realized I had a bit of an addiction checking prices and looking for the next 100X coin, so I’ve removed some apps and I’m working against it.

Bitcoin Day was at the Holiday Inn and started off with Mayor Paul Tenhaken sharing about Sioux Falls and South Dakota having a lot of financial and trust institutions. He was very supportive of the Bitcoin innovation.

Adam Meister was the Emcee and all energy.

There were about 50 people there from all over and ages.

I got some fun stickers and the Bitcoin Money book to read with the kids. My son got the yo-yo and added a Bitcoin symbol after looking at the stickers.

Keynote - Alex Stanzyk

Alex Stanzyk from Swan Bitcoin kicked it off with the keynote. He called BTC a revolution, “the government didn’t stop BTC, because they can’t”, “BTC takes out the wickedness of man”, “BTC is the better form of money”, “through history, all fiat money has gone to 0”, there is a lot of adoption happening throughout the economy, Exon is using flared gas to mine BTC and it helps the environment by using that excess energy, “BTC is the only peaceful path forward for mankind”, “it takes time to learn”.

Eric Yates - The 7 Properties of Money

I learned a lot about money from Eric Yates . He has a book The 7 Property , “If you want a comprehensive & technical #bitcoin intro - this is it”. “revolution”, “learners will inherit the future”, money should have the lowest rate of declining value across time/space/scales, we’ve traded trust for efficiency. Central banking, moving from the gold standard, out of control debt, malinvestment, over consumption -> problems, wealth inequality, political divisions.

the agency problem came up several times, it’s a self-interest, moral hazard when someone has to be trusted with money. The Cantillon Effect was also mentioned several times where those closest to the money printer benefit the most and probably contributes to income inequality.

money -> trade -> specialization -> wealth

beads -> gold -> coins (which were eventually clipped) -> paper

BTC is a base 0 layer for money, similar to ACH not like Visa.

Adoption is out pacing internet adoption in the early days, it’s a new financial system.

We need more services built on top of BTC.

The 7 Properties are scarcity, durability, accountability, portability, divisibility, fungibility, immutability

“BTC changes peoples lives”, leads to less credit/debit and more saving?

Brian Harrington - Bitcoin and Personal Finance

Can you live on BTC and 0 fiat (dollars)? Brian Harrington is living it and is using BTC as his primary currency using these apps #getOnZeroStack

“BTC is money, the dollar is credit”, the daily cost average of holding BTC has been going up, fiat goes down so “the math works out”

“Our old financial advice is out of date, we’re learning new ways”

He works for Choice. Did you know you can have BTC in a Roth IRA? If you’re interested, use my referral link to Choice and get started. Kingdom Trust/Choice has headquarters in Sioux Falls and were represented well.

Here’s a picture of presenter Brian Harrington from Choice with Mayor Paul Tenhaken on Twitter .

The Lightning Network

Dusty , a lightning network developer, talked about the Lightning Network and his new splicing channels feature. You can follow the spec and development on Github

It was started in 2017, but gained a lot of usage in the last few years. The network enables fast and low cost payments of Bitcoin that operates outside of the BTC blockchain. It is being used in El Salvador and soon Miami and all over the world to make and accept payments.

It’s a bit like opening a tab at a bar, but Dusty said this analogy falls short.

You can run a node, put in some BTC and possible earn BTC from transactions. It takes work to get the right channels setup. See Amboss.space for more information and stats. Some mentioned using Umbrell . Here’s one of many videos I found . You can get help from Plebnet .

I had to learn more about it later from Coin Bureau August 17, 2021 and Simply Explained from 2017 .

Mining

Black Hills Mining Company is close to Sioux Falls, hosts mining rigs. He shared about the challenges of power consumption and cooling (they can keep there whole building heated in the winter with just the computers running) with all the rigs running.

Bob Burnet from Barefoot Mining gave a higher level talk about Bitcoin and money. I left my notes at the office and will add some here. Here are some pictures I took from his slides.

Greg Foss

Mr. Foss from Canada, was in the bonds market and felt bad about it later. He switched to Bitcoin and was very excited about it. Dollars are built on credit and the USA has a lot of debt especially the unfunded liabilities. Global debt is $400 trillion vs $100 trillion in GDP. We’d need 12% annual growth to pay that all off. There’s about $4 of equity for every $100 of loans. Leverage is the danger to our system.

“fiat is credit/debt”, “fiat is the ponzi scheme, BTC is the only solution”, “Credit makes the world go round”, “1971 was a USA default”, “debt rolls over until it doesn’t”

“BTC is the best asymmetric risk opportunity.” “BTC is digital energy”, “dollar cost average your Bitcoin purchases over time”

“If you don’t know what the bond markets are doing, you won’t understand commodities.” “Commodities are the tail”

“Everyone should own more then 0 BTC, start at 5% and keep going up”

“BTC is default insurance protection against a basket fiat”

Based on his projection on the debt markets he thought BTC should be worth $40,000 and could even go to $2 million. When used to price energy: 5% of Global Assets, $900 trillion = $45T / 21M (BTC) = $2M. Manage your risk based on the probability of about 1/70 chance that BTC goes to $2 million.

“BTC for our children: fix the money, fix the world”

My Reflections

I new there was a lot of sovereign debt, inflation and issues with creating more fiat money out of thin years. I’ve become more aware of this in the last few years and that has fueled my interest in Bitcoin. I also think there is value in the alternative cryptos (ETH for smart contracts, etc), but I’m now thinking of them as a separate category of investments vs BTC. I’m definitely taking a closer look at where I keep my savings (dollars for .04% interest vs BTC). There’s still risk in BTC, but the future sure seems bright. Maybe I’m becoming more “orange peeled”.

I even bought Bitcoin Money to read to my kids that illustrates the ideas well. I wonder what finances will look like for them…

There are also a lot of opportunities for developers and business people around BTC. I hope that Sioux Falls and South Dakota can lead the way and help others. I’m going to bring this up at Omnitech so there is more awareness of the tools that can help more of our clients.

I hope that this vision of Bitcoin as sound money that helps people around the world, increase peace and stability, but I know the only real hope is in Jesus who is mighty to save in this life and eternity.

More Links

• https://strike.me/ and https://twitter.com/Strike
• https://twitter.com/IBEX_Mercado , https://www.ibexmercado.com/ accept payment using the Lightning Network 1% fee for BTC to BTC, 2% for BTC to fiat,
• March 25, 2022 JPMorgan Says Bitcoin Is Undervalued By 28%, Says Cryptocurrencies Are Now A ‘Preferred Alternative Asset’
• Run BTCPayServer on Azure
• Why Bitcoin is not a bubble
• Did cash crash? - image
• I’ve learned from the Reddit community , CoinBureau and Celsius Network over the years
• Bailey’s talk about education
• Bailey and Adam Meister talking about DSU and SD
• Bitcoin and the Bible Podcast
• Thank God for Bitcoin book . I wrote this after reading the book
• Free book from SwanBitcoin

What do you think? Send me a message on my tweet

Referral

To get started with Bitcoin, I recommend buying over time with Swan Bitcoin (which has low fees and was easy to setup ACH) then moving it to cold storage. With my referral link, you’ll get $10 in BTC and I free book. I’ll get a small percentage kickback.