Bitcoin Miami 2022 – Key Insights

About Bitcoin Conference Miami 2022

This April, the Miami Beach Convention Center hosted Bitcoin Miami 2022, a landmark event that Gravity Team had the great opportunity to attend. The conference aimed to gather bitcoiners from around the world in one place for a few days of insightful discussions and panel talks on all things crypto.

The event moved from Los Angeles to Miami, a city that is increasingly positioning itself as a vibrant crypto hub and a strategic bridge for crypto implementation in Latin America.

The conference was composed of five different stages:

• Nakamoto;
• Genesis;
• Mining;
• Open Source, and;
• Enterprise Stage, for more than 30,000 attendees and exhibitors.

Right in the Exhibition Center’s entrance, a huge tech replica of the NY Wall Street Charging Bull was standing, weighing almost 1,400 kg, aiming to exhibit the strength and vibrant spirit of the Bitcoin community.

Picture Credits: Forbes

Key Takeaways from Bitcoin 2022

Here are some of the main topics covered during the conference:

• The Latest in Bitcoin Mainstream Adoption: to improve cryptocurrency adoption, its utility should expand. One way to do so is to enable crypto payments in physical stores, as well as online. Thanks to Jack Mallers, and others working hard to make this a reality, we can already pay with crypto on Shopify, and later this year, will be able to, in many stores in the U.S., such as Whole Foods, Aldi, McDonalds and Chipotle, to name a few..
• Dollar Devaluation: Due to Fed policies and its decision to increase currency supply, the US dollar has been devaluating, impacting how much is 1 BTC in US dollars. This phenomenon may lead to an increase in the value of holding crypto since it may overcome the issue of consumers’ reduced purchasing power. According to Morgan Creek Capital founder Mark Yusko’s words: “This isn’t inflation. This is currency devaluation”.
• Institutional Adoption & Regulation: crypto adoption significantly depends on its institutional adoption and governmental regulations in place. Fortunately, lately many governments’ perception of cryptocurrencies has been increasingly changing.
• Mining and Sustainability: As the latter is an increasingly hot topic, it is challenging not to mention bitcoin’s implications on sustainability. As expected, many bitcoiners believe that its adoption has more benefits than any potential harm its energy consumption poses. Efforts are being made to increase the usage of clean energy for bitcoin mining. However, currently, renewable energy is still unreliable for power mining supercomputers.
• Bitcoin price: Its price expectations are bullish, with many holders and investors believing in its increase in the long term. This prediction is based on an increase in Bitcoin demand. Additionally, even though coin prices may be volatile in the short run, Bitcoin’s volatility decreases compared to other assets.

Below, we will discuss a few select sessions in further detail.

Jack Mallers Announcement

Jack Mallers, the 27- year old CEO of bitcoin payment app Strike, dropped a huge announcement during Bitcoin Miami 2022 conference closing session. He shared the news of partnerships with Shopify and the largest Point of Sales tech providers NCR and Blackhawk Network. This will enable PoS integrations and by the end of the year, shoppers should be able to pay in bitcoin at WholeFoods, Chipotle, McDonald’s, Walmart, Walgreens and many other physical stores.
This great news for crypto users, as well as merchants, as Strike aims to reduce merchant fees to be as low as possible, more than 3x lower than current payment providers.

He also added that “I’ve been working with Senator Cynthia Lummis to make sure that in the United States of America we support this open payment standard and it isn’t threatened by anybody else”.

The Future is Bright

Michael Saylor and Cathie Woods, two of the most well-known names in the crypto space, shared a stage to talk about the bright future ahead of us. Cathie Woods went as far as suggesting a price target of $1 Million for bitcoin and Saylor stating that he is “more bullish than ever on Bitcoin.”

One of his reasons for this interpretation is President Joe Biden’s directive for all federal agencies to do  research on digital currency. Also, he praised Bitcoin Lightning Network due to being fast, low-cost and open source payments platform “Every tech entrepreneur, every exchange will have to include Lightning, if it wants to be viable.” He further added that: “I think that technology is going to drive the adoption of bitcoin more aggressively in the next 36 months.”

Keynote by Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary

The legendary Shark Tank judge and investor suggested that crypto is set to become so significant as to become the 12th sector in the S&Ps 500’s index. However, for that to happen, we need regulation and policy.

“What we’re missing is policy. When we get policy, and the regulator regulates, that’s not a negative thing,” he said.

“The spigots of capital are going to flood into this sector, like you’ve never seen. So for those of us that can invest in it now — you’re getting ahead of what’s going to be a huge wave of interest when policy occurs.”

“The good news is, on a bipartisan basis, there are many senators and reps that are thinking about this in a proactive way”.

To conclude, Shark Tank’s star judge said he believes that the “smartest people in the world” are working in the cryptocurrencies and digital assets space. Thus, he hopes that the regulation improves to retain this talent and blockchain-based companies in the U.S.

Bitcoin Macroeconomic Landscape

Another insightful conversation that took place on the Nakamoto Stage was the “Bitcoin Macroeconomic Landscape” panel talk with:

• Trey Lockerbie, Co-founder, and CEO at Better Booch;
• Jeff Booth, Chairman of the Board at CubicFarm Systems;
• Dr. Jeff Ross, Founder, CEO, and Portfolio Manager at Vailshire Partners;
• Mark Moss, Market Analyst at Market Disruptors, and;
• Preston Pysh, Founder at The Pylon Holding Company.

The conversation started with Mark Moss’ view on the cyclicality of technological advancement across the ages, followed by Jeff Booth’s take on network transfers.

Regarding the traditional financial system, he says: “A feature of the system is a transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the rich because [the traditional financial system] is based on inflation. On the other hand, a free market is deflationary and “led by technology.”

Picture Credits: Richard Whitman Twitter

To finalize, Preston Pysh dived into the flaws of multiple crypto projects and central bank digital currencies. He argues that many of these projects label themselves decentralized, but could not be further from the truth.

Compliance & Regulation

Lastly, one panel talk that is ever more relevant today was the “Compliance & Regulation” on the 7th of April, at the Enterprise Stage with:

• Hailey Lennon, Partner at Anderson Kill;
• Jeff Howard, North America Head of Business Development & Institutional Sales at OSL;
• Simon Douyer, COO at SheeldMarket;
• Preston Byrne, Tech Lawyer at Anderson Kill, and;
• John Melican, Chief of External Affairs at Elliptic.

In this conversation, the panelists concluded that without clear regulatory lines, crypto businesses and projects need to be cautious.

John Melican said that, in fact, demand for information that helps identify crypto criminal activity at Elliptic increased: “That’s what we’re seeing, and that’s what we’re building is the capacity to serve crypto at scale. And we’re building this capacity to bring in assets as quickly as they’re demanded because it’s an ever-changing environment”.

Also, the President Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to report on digital currencies and consider new regulations was discussed. To which Jeff Howard commented, “I think the executive order was a step in the right direction”.

As Simon Douyer said, “without guidance from the government, crypto projects and users had to decide by themselves the level of risk they were willing to take. The issue really is about the threshold. Where do you put your risk threshold?” he questioned.

Picture Credits: The Wall Street Journal

Final Thoughts

Bitcoin 2022 Miami Conference was a great way opportunity to learn and connect with the industry. In addition, the conference has provided precious insights from its top speakers.

This was one of the largest conferences in terms of attendees of the year. It gathered together most of the crypto community and offered a ton of industry events. The industry, whale night and side events allowed for more focused industry networking. Whilst the exhibitor hall allowed visitors to discover established and new players in the space. As the name suggest, the focus was largely on bitcoin, but also infrastructure players were present.

Gravity Team is glad to have made it to Miami and witnessed such a vibrant and dynamic event. See you next year Bitcoin Miami 2022!