Bitcoin London meet-up recap: Moving forward with the original Bitcoin

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The first Bitcoin London meet-up of 2019 took place in Finsbury Square on Tuesday evening, April 2nd, bringing together local professionals who wish to network and learn more about the technology outlined in the original Bitcoin whitepaper.

Sponsored by CoinGeek.com, the event was entitled “Moving Forward with the Original Bitcoin” and featured five quick presentations, complimentary food and drinks, networking space and the presence of Bitcoin SV (BSV) leaders such as Dr. Craig Wright and Steve Shadders of nChain and Michael Hudson of Bitstocks.

Shadders, nChain’s Lead Developer, hosted an audience Q & A, covering topics such as OP_RETURNs, BSV’s unique ability to massively scale, and the recent mining of a record-breaking 128MB block and how this achievement benefits miners.

“What we’re going to start to see, pretty much from now, is miners having their behavior influenced by the economic incentives of Bitcoin. We’re 10 years in and Bitcoin is now starting to exhibit the properties that it was designed to exhibit. So its almost like a second birth of Bitcoin,” Shadders told CoinGeek.com.

In addition to educating delegates on the latest in Bitcoin, events like Bitcoin London’s casual meet-ups are important for nurturing the Bitcoin ecosystem and creating a sense of physical comradery in an otherwise digital setting.

“We just really want to be with people and network with people. At the CoinGeek Conference we met so many intelligent people, people that are building, people that are passionate. I just love being around people that are passionate about Bitcoin,” shared Meet-up speaker $marquee Mark Allison, Enterprise Software Architect.

How to engage “regular people” in everyday Bitcoin use was another topic of discussion on the night, covered by Rafa Jiménez, Co-Founder of Handcash. Jiménez explained the philosophy behind HandCash wallet development and how they strive to create wallets that the “average Joe” can easily use.

“The biggest thing that we found when we arrived to the ecosystem was to improve the backups, improve the way that we can send money to other people and having local currency [displayed], what the people are using to having. These were our biggest hypotheses at the beginning of the project,” Jiménez shared.

Bitcoin London’s Darren Eggenschwiler served as the evening’s moderator and also took an active role in the overall organization of the meet-up, a unique opportunity to match names to faces.

“Putting something in a physical location makes it kind of real, right? I have a lot of internet friends—a lot of people here have a lot of internet friends—that develops the community in one way, but we’re developing the community at a location in person. Its different face to face, its better,” said Eggenschwiler.

“I think its important that we develop small communities all over the world that foster BSV building and BSV friend-making. I’m here to make friends and business partners and we’re going to build the future,” he added.

For those who want to take part in the building of BSV’s future, the next opportunity to make a difference is May 29-30 in Toronto at the CoinGeek Conference. The benefits of massive on-chain scaling for businesses, developers, miners, consumers and more will be covered and anyone interested in learning more about BSV and the Satoshi Vision is welcome.