The price of Bitcoin has eroded since the spring of 2022. In the space of a few weeks, the oldest cryptocurrency has lost more than half of its value. Currently, the currency is trading around $20,000. Bitcoin is far from its record high of last year, when the price approached $70,000.
The King Bitcoin crash penalized the entire cryptocurrency market and tokens not fungible. Billions of dollars in valuation have gone up in smoke. Millions of investors jumped ship, scalded by extreme market volatility. Despite this bearish backdrop, the community of bitcoin advocates has not disappeared. The ” bitcoiners », bitcoin holders, continue to work behind the scenes to improve the protocol and democratize cryptocurrency.
Surfin Bitcoin, the big meeting of the crypto community
The fervor of the crypto community is expressed, for example, during events. Bitcoin advocates meet regularly at conferences or meetings. Among the most popular events in Europe are Bitcoin Bitcoin.
Organized in Biarritz, the event consists of three days of conferences focusing on the queen of cryptocurrencies. The show seeks to introduce the world of Bitcoin to beginners, while allowing experts to exchange and find each other. To this end, evenings of networking are still planned on the roof of the Biarritz casino.
We were lucky enough to participate in the third edition of Surfin Bitcoin, which took place from Thursday 25 to Saturday 27 August 2022. The conference was a great success, revealed the organizer during his closing speech. 2,000 people took part in the event, ie 200 visitors more than expected. This is the first time that the event has attracted so many people.
To attract neophytes, the StackinSat teams have set up an amazing Surf-to-earn competition, in reference to applications that allow you to earn cryptos by walking, such as StepN. To earn satoshis (the smallest unit of Bitcoin), participants must demonstrate their surfing skills on a mechanical board. Whoever stays the longest without being ejected wins 1,000 euros in Bitcoin. A treasure hunt, with the key 10,000 euros in Bitcoin, was also organized in the city of Biarritz.
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Bitcoin, an answer to inflation
Asked about the course, Bitcoin’s most vocal advocates admit they don’t know how the price will move in the future, or when. In an interview with 01net.com, Jonathan Herscovici, organizer of Surfin Bitcoin and founder of StackinSat, a French start-up that offers easy Bitcoin savings, said:
“Nobody can answer that question…it could be three months, six months, five years, nobody knows. Anyone who says they know is a scammer. Quite simply “.
Finally, the price issue is of little interest to Bitcoin advocates. During a conference, Mike Peterson, founder of the famous Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador, does not hesitate to assure that the course does not matter on the long term.
“We focus on the utility of Bitcoin, not its price. We mainly focus on its usefulness in the countries that need it the most, such as El Salvador”explains the founder of StackinSat, who describes himself as a “maximalist”.
In the crypto universe, a maximalist is a die-hard bitcoin advocate. For them, it is the only cryptocurrency to have an interest. Many refer to other cryptos in the ecosystem as ” shitcoins ».
Bitcoin addresses issues like inflation monetary, underlines the founder of StackinSat. For many bitcoin, the queen of cryptocurrencies will eventually establish itself as a new safe haven, just like gold. Like gold, Bitcoin should help protect savings against the erosion of the value of fiat currencies, such as the euro or the dollar.
As such, members of the crypto community have fun with the inflation of these currencies. For example, they point the finger at the inflation of the euro, which is currently reaching record highs, or the hyperinflation that is hitting certain South American countries. The first night, a bitcoin distributed bolivar notes, the national currency of Venezuela, as a bookmark. The value of this national currency has collapsed since 2018. To buy everyday goods, such as milk or eggs, you now have to spend hundreds of Bolivar notes. This is why many Venezuelans have turned to the US dollar or cryptocurrencies.
The thorny question of Bitcoin price
Under these conditions, Bitcoin advocates believe that the price will inevitably rise again at some point. If some refuse to play the prophets, others predict a further increase from 2024. Several investors expect Bitcoin to recover in value during the halving. This is the drop in rewards given to miners. At the end of this deflationary operation, the number of bitcoins will become scarce.
This theory is shared by several key players in the ecosystem, such as Du Jun, the co-founder of Huobi, an exchange platform. Last February, he assured that it ” it won’t be until late 2024 or early 2025 that we can welcome the next bull market in Bitcoin.” More measured, the founder of StackinSat prefers to consider the course by taking a step back:
“In the long term, the price will go up. There is a correlation for the moment with the financial markets but there will be a decorrelation in the long term. Our belief is that Bitcoin has long-term utility as a new monetary standard.”specifies Jonathan Herscovici, who expects that there will still be volatility in the years to come.
Despite the meteoric decline of recent months, the community continues to believe in the Bitcoin project. As an investor present in Biarritz pointed out, ” people who understood bitcoin don’t disappear when you enter a bear market”. During a panel, Emilien Dutang, a popular trader on Twitter, also reminds us that most people who invest in Bitcoin are long-term winners :
“There is little risk of losing everything by investing in the main cryptos, like Bitcoin”.
Convinced that Bitcoin is here to stay, bitcoin regret prejudice and lack of interest from the general public and political leaders for the subject. On stage, Sebastien Gouspillou, co-founder of Bigblock Datacenter, a bitcoin mining company, points out that ” Saying you’re a bitcoin miner doesn’t necessarily sit well in society”.
Art in tribute to Bitcoin
In the corridors of the Biarritz casino, several works of art in homage to Bitcoin were exhibited. These creations, signed by several artists in the sector, notably consisted of comic strips, a glass cube engraved with the BTC logo, and a chest displaying a Bitcoin hologram.
Unsurprisingly, each work is accompanied by a non-fungible token (NFT) on Counterparty, a platform created on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Some works have been sold at auction at the end of the event. For example, a comic strip, produced by the artist Lina Seiche, was sold for satoshis. No euros in the Surfin Bitcoin auction room. All proceeds raised were donated to charity. A boat trip was also auctioned off. Adorned with a huge Bitcoin logo, the sailboat, named Sato Boat in homage to the creator of the cryptocurrency, embeds a node, a computer which participates in the operation of the blockchain.