2024

This welcome event is for Speakers, Sponsors, and VIP Ticket Holders. Location:

Paulaner am Dom
Domplatz 6, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

This Networking party is for all Ticket Holders. Location:

Paulaner am Dom
Domplatz 6, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

An introduction and welcome to the conference by Bob Summerwill, Executive Director of the Ethereum Classic Cooperative and Alan Austin, Managing Director of the Litecoin Foundation.

An exploration into bitcoin transactions that show up in blocks without first being broadcast throughout the p2p network.

Join Chris from Seedor and Bitsurance for an exciting round of trivia, where you'll dive into the worlds of Bitcoin, cryptography, and Cypherpunk history! Everyone can play along from their phone—no registration required. Test your knowledge, win awesome prizes, and you could even score a grand prize of one million satoshis!

Learn how the first publicly traded crypto miner, HIVE, continues to set standards for environmental responsibility throughout its global data center operations.

How two guys managed to create and deliver a piece of open-source hardware: a blueprint to inspire builders around the world. What we have learned from our experience.

Crypto Mining: A Path to a Sustainable Energy Future

This panel will explore the intricate relationship between Bitcoin mining and sustainability, addressing the evolving landscape of energy consumption and environmental impact. Industry leaders will discuss innovative approaches to efficient BTC mining, the integration of renewable energy sources, and the crucial role of mining operations in stabilising energy grids. The session will also delve into the social responsibilities of BTC miners and their contributions to local communities.

The Bitaxe is a compact, open-source Bitcoin mining device designed for individual and small-scale miners. Developed to promote decentralization in Bitcoin mining, this portable ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) miner aims to make Bitcoin mining more accessible to everyday users.

Its open-source nature allows for community-driven improvements and modifications, fostering innovation in the mining hardware space. While not competing with large-scale industrial mining operations in terms of hash rate, the Bitaxe serves as an educational tool and a means for individuals to participate directly in the Bitcoin network's security and transaction verification process.

The first end-to-end zkRollup on a UTXO based chain

Trillions of dollars in illicit financial flows slosh around our financial system today, facilitated by the most powerful centralized institutions. Current efforts to address IFFs are ineffective and result in harmful side effects for some of the most vulnerable in society. In this talk, we investigate the causes and impact of IFFs. Despite what certain bankers and politicians might have told you, the transparency and programmability of cryptocurrencies are a solution to, not a cause of, the problem.

The talk introduces innovations like Ark and BitVM and outlines their potential role in scaling Bitcoin in a more trust-minimized manner.

Tornado&Samurai-DoJ, Gaza-Israel, Trump-Harris... what type of privacy we seek in 2024?
What's the role of Bitcoin in the global privacy landscape?
Is Cypherpunk Dream dead or need a reboot?
Let's discuss what's wrong & right with 700 projects contributing to decentralized privacy in 2024.

In this talk, we will present the concept of generalized channels for PoW-based blockchains. Generalized channels allow to lift any functionality available on layer-1 to a second layer, where transactions can be carried instantaneously and at low costs. This greatly extends the functionality offered by current channel systems such as the Lightning network. We will present applications of our technique including a method for cross-chain transactions and integrating the Lightning network into other ecosystems.

Lyudmyla Kozlovska, president of Open Dialogue Foundation and a Ukrainian human rights defender, and Bota Jardemalie, a New York lawyer, Kazakh human rights defender, and Belgian political refugee, will discuss how the misuse of AML and CFT laws and the weaponization of banking data lead to political repression and financial exclusion, and how activists worldwide turn to P2P Bitcoin transactions, self-hosted wallets, mixers, and other privacy payment instruments to protect human rights. What strategies do we have to defend the Lightning Network and privacy tools from escalating regulatory attacks? Why do we need to protect Bitcoin mining alongside privacy instruments to safeguard the entire Bitcoin ecosystem?

Fireside chat with Charlie Lee talking about Litecoin, payments, and privacy

Rena Shah, COO of Trust Machines will walkthrough the history of BNS, and discuss how onchain naming has evolved around Bitcoin, how it can grow with innovative L2s like Stacks, and where she predicts onchain digital identity to breakthrough to the Web2 communities.

For more than 6 years, Rootstock has been relying on a federated Powpeg mechanism to secure the thousands of bitcoins that have been transferred to the sidechain. While the Powpeg stands out as one of the most secure multisig systems in the industry, the bitcoin community, unsatisfied with the t-of-n honesty quorum security model, calls for higher standards in terms of decentralization. Until recently, a permissionless bridge was impossible due to Bitcoin script limitations. It all changed in October 2023, with the invention of BitVM bringing the (1-of-n) model. Soon afterwards, the BitVMX protocol was published, extending and optimizing the initial design. BitVMX is general-purpose verification system based on the disputable computing paradigm applied to a RISC-V virtual processor. In this presentation, we describe the fundamentals of BitVMX and we unveil the Rootstock Union Bridge, a new permissionless bridge proposed for the Rootstock sidechain that builds on top of BitVMX. The Union bridge is the first capital-efficient permissionless security-bonded bridge that can extend to hundreds of participants resting on a single honest verifier.

In 2013, during peak forked coin hype and as a means to make fun of all the nonsense on bitcointalk's "alts" forum, a coin was proposed that was so dumb that it could never succeed. It would be a short lived joke and then fail after 14 months. Except, it failed to fail.

This is a journey about Dogecoin. The coin that wasn't supposed to be here.

Bitsurance is the first company to insure your Bitcoin stack against the elements, robbery and extortion.

Despite living in a world, where your entire net worth exists as a string of digits on the blockchain, there's still the age old threat of the infamous "$5 wrench attack." In this talk, we will delve into the business of insuring your Bitcoin against the terrifying scenario where a would-be thief skips the complex cyber hacks and instead just kicks your door down and whacks you until you hand over your private keys.

Hybrid L2s are a new class of L2s that inherit security from multiple L1s, e.g. Bitcoin and Ethereum. This makes them not only the most secure web3 platforms on the market, but also removes the need for 3rd party bridges: a hybrid L2 has native bridges to each of the connected chains. This means users from Bitcoin can always get their BTC back, same for ETH/ERC20 users from Ethereum, etc.

BOB is the first to introduce the hybrid L2 design in 2023. BOB uses BitVM2 to achieve Bitcoin security as a rollup, while creating native connections to Ethereum, and other L1s like Solana and Tron in the future. The release of the official BitVM2 technical paper, co-authored by BOB co-founder Alexei Zamyatin, is a major milestone in creating a new generation of web3-native platforms that can challenge centralized exchanges with never before seen security and UX. Tron and Starware recently followed BOB announcing their intentions to switch to hybrid designs to connect to Bitcoin - and more will follow.

Consensus mechanisms are hotly debated, but often times handwaving, short sightedness, and blinkered thinking prevents an accurate view of the security they provide or the factors which will determine their suitability. In this talk we will look at different consensus mechanism, "analog" world factors which will impact these choices, and how many projects are assuming much greater levels of security and stability than is actually provided by the consensus mechanisms they've chosen.

As Bitcoin continues to gain traction, the vision of hyperbitcoinization—where Bitcoin becomes the dominant global currency—moves closer to reality. In this talk, we’ll explore the crucial role of modularity and innovative technologies in advancing Bitcoin from a mere store of value to a universal unit of account. Discover the strategies and developments necessary to propel Bitcoin into the mainstream, paving the way for a decentralized, borderless financial future.

ZK proofs are now verifiable on Bitcoin. This changes everything.

Whether we're talking about "Layer 2" technologies, or about spontaneous mutual aid organisation, the most activity that matters is the activity that happens at the outside edges of the system. Rarely do centralised "top down" approaches achieve anything significant (and even more rarely is it positive), but even when they do, it's action on the edges that actually facilitates change.

This panel, led by Janszg of Bitcoin layers, brings together the top L2 builders in the space to seperate the hype from the reality of scaling bitcoin.

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Merged-mined blockchains, such as Rootstock, leverage the security of Bitcoin. However, their scalability is restricted by block template update policies of Bitcoin mining pools. This makes it impractical to reduce block interval times solely by adjusting the difficulty of the merged-mined chain. To address this limitation, we introduce FASTER, a hybrid consensus mechanism that combines merged-mined Proof of Work (PoW) with Proof of Stake (PoS) to reduce block time while maintaining high security. In the FASTER protocol, each PoW block starts a new epoch. Within an epoch, a randomly selected leader proposes microblocks. These microblocks are then enhanced with signatures from PoA members to ensure finality. Forks are resolved based on accumulated difficulty and votes. The FASTER protocol aims to provide substantial improvements in block time efficiency and security, making it a promising solution for scalable blockchain applications

Bullruns don't just happen, they are catalyzed. The '20-'21 and early '24 run-ups were both catalyzed by institutional investment. The next group of institutions are the world's Sovereign Funds.

They all want to invest in Bitcoin. They all believe they can't because of the ESG narrative.
But that's a belief that's now ripe for challenging.

This talk looks at what happens when they flip their ESG beliefs, and how we can all make that happen.

This workshop offers a hands-on experience with BitVMX, focusing on executing a sample program. Errors will deliberately introduced into the program so they can be resolved on-chain using Signet. Throughout the session, we will demonstrate the encoding of data using Winternitz signatures and explore the various challenges and mechanisms within the BitVMX protocol. This interactive approach will provide a comprehensive understanding of how BitVMX handles errors and ensures robust dispute resolution in Bitcoin.

The age of hydrocarbons has been a remarkable success story of humanity. It provided the cheap and abundant energy that has literally powered the growth and development of global civilization as we know it. By now, however, the negative environmental consequences ultimately culminating in climate change are too material to ignore. How to decarbonize the global economy without jeopardizing wealth and prosperity is the wicked global challenge that nobody seems to find answers to. We have witnessed the disastrous consequences and costs of top-down interventionism by bureaucrats over the past 50 years - achieving neither decarbonization nor wealth preservation nor growth. It leaves people rightfully disenfranchised and revolting. However, a new paradigm offers hope: Bitcoin. Bitcoin happens to have multiple properties that hold the promise of providing the long-term climate-positive outcomes, all while achieving growth and prosperity through investment, the forces of the free market and human ingenuity. Bitcoin is the Plan B for our Planet A.

The traditional approach to Proof of Work (POW) does not consider the value or cost of the heat produced. It also does not consider the impact of POW on the electricity markets. We will consider the degree of decentralization for the different types of POW, in particular the POW algorithms that favor the use of Central Processing Units (CPUs), Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), Application Specific Integrated Circuits ASICs, and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). We will discuss, using an understanding of thermodynamics, how heat produced from decentralized POW can be used for space heating with a neutral or negative carbon footprint. We will consider electric resistive heating, electric heat pumps and combustion based heating. We will consider impact of POW on electricity markets, with both both renewable and non renewable energy sources, the use of POW for electrical grid stabilization, the use of electricity with little or no commercial value for POW and use of POW to improve the economic viability of renewable energy projects.

Janusz describes why L2s are sovereign systems and why they should pay substantial fees to sustain bitcoin’s security budget.

The use of an L2 is asset-specific and Janusz explains the misconceptions around L2s, some of their designs, and why providing new, secure execution systems for BTC the asset is the only thing that really matters.

Proof-of-Work data centers can enhance green energy, balance our grids, and mitigate methane emissions. As we move through the energy transition and pursue carbon neutrality, Proof-of-Work mining can play a vital role in helping us achieve our goals.

In the talk, the requirements from an ESG-perspective are elaborated upon, trying to bring everybody on "the same page" regarding this highly challenging topic. After listening to this speech, the listener will gave gained a deeper understanding what the regulator is asking for and what could happen, if the industry does not align in their efforts to push-back.

When Satoshi embeded the message "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" the non monetary use of bitcoin was born. From the early days of Rare Pepe to the present fanatical use of block space for inscriptions these use cases are not new. The Romans also used their finanical network to spread memes (propgranda) thoughout the empire on the reverse of coins. Do sats exist? What can we learn from non monetary uses of bitcoin?

A discussion of current usecases built on the POW algorithm

Stratum V2 is the future of POW mining and offers several key benefits.

The contagion of autocracies requires strong civic hygiene, and that includes end to end encryption. Also, a hot war in Europe means democracies must protect against Russian and Chinese SIGINT. We will also discuss the Telegram affair.

Many assume that using privacy-enhancing technologies automatically makes them invisible to prying eyes. But this assumption is not only flawed—it can be dangerous. From cryptocurrency transactions to encrypted messaging, too many users fall into the trap of thinking they are "safe" simply because they have the right tools. This talk will dive into the psychological false sense of security that privacy tech often creates, why relying on tech without understanding its limitations can leave you more exposed than traditional methods.

Kids face unique challenges to financial freedom, and these are often overlooked by adults. What challenges do kids face, and what role can Bitcoin play?

For widespread adoption, cryptocurrencies must be used regularly for everyday transactions. Litewallet, the only Litecoin mobile wallet, plays a pivotal role in this ecosystem by providing a accessible platform for users to make daily purchases or transfers, and generally manage their LTC. In 2022, the Litecoin network activated a critical feature with the introduction of the MimbleWimble Extension Block (MWEB). MWEB gives users the option to obfuscate the value of a transaction to only the recipient. This lets users choose what level of privacy they want for their transactions. This study leverages usage analytics on Newborn, the Litewallet Alpha testbed where MWEB is an option, empirical network data from a live site and ~2 years of historical data. This paper aims to provide a detailed account of these efforts and draw some interest if not modest conclusions in these early stages of MWEB deployment.

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Scaling technology and scaling values pose fundamentally different challenges. Technology can (in theory) be replicated, optimized, and deployed at scale. In contrast, values are embedded in social and political contexts and need constant revision. Cypherpunk ideals—privacy, decentralization, and resistance to authority—have struggled to scale alongside the technologies they inspired. Bitcoin, once a symbol of radical decentralization, now faces centralization by institutional interests and mining pools. Monero, while upholding privacy, also faces the pressures of technological and social scaling. The question is: Can Cypherpunk values survive in a world where scaling technology seems easier than scaling principles? Have Bitcoin and similar technologies drifted too far from their ideological roots, becoming mere tools in a system of centralized, computational trust?

There are many ways to build a privacy-respecting transaction protocol, taking advantage of different kinds of cryptographic plumbing. But even good math can be assembled in ways that still leak information and render a design less safe than intended.

This talk will use real-world examples to show the challenge of building protocols that respect privacy and enhance safety, and how plugging cryptographic leaks is pretty darn tough.

As central banks all over the world race to launch their Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) to please the global elites such as the World Economic Forum, we as citizens have no other recourse but to learn and understand what these new technologies will entail to our life, liberty, and property.

To explain what are CBDCs, a good way of going about it is to compare them with Ethereum Classic (ETC).

ETC is the most secure and advanced blockchain technology in the world and CBDCs seek to imitate the EVM design that it uses, but to add to them their central control and planning devices.

Bitcoin was not a useful model to follow by them as it was so basic that it didn’t enable any kind of central planning scheme.

A discussion on the state of privacy in technology and society.

As the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector rapidly expands, Ethereum Classic (ETC) is emerging as a key player within the proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain ecosystem. This speech will explore the unique strengths and opportunities that ETC brings to the DeFi space, emphasizing the robustness, security, and decentralization advantages inherent in its PoW consensus mechanism. We will examine how ETC's compatibility with Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dApps) and adherence to a more decentralized vision positions it as an ideal foundation for DeFi innovation. Additionally, the speech will address the growing interest in building on ETC’s platform and how its immutable ledger and sound monetary policy contribute to a trustless, transparent, and secure environment for financial applications. The discussion will highlight real-world use cases, current projects, and the future roadmap for ETC’s DeFi ecosystem, offering insights into how ETC can drive the next wave of decentralized financial infrastructure.

Wrap-up and closing session.
Everyone up on stage for a photo.