BWJ 027: Special Edition: The Bitcoin Bush Bash.
This week: How important is it to meet Bitcoiners in-real-life? A long-form article for a change...
Bitcoin Bush Bash
How important is it to meet Bitcoiners in-real-life?
Last Friday afternoon I jumped in the car with my great mate Jigs, a co-host on our passion project, We’re So Bloody Early. To say the least I was excited, not only due to the sense of freedom every ‘road trip’ incites, but in the knowledge I was going to a physical meetup of Bitcoiners; we were going to the Bitcoin Bush Bash.
I had this feeling we were really moving forward, putting the lockdown induced difficulties of the past few years behind us, and powering towards a compelling future. The sun was shining, the Australian countryside flying past, taking us to beautiful part of Northern Victoria I had never visited before: Beechworth.
You know that moment when you enter a room, you know no-one, and you’re nervous? I even get sweaty hands sometimes… For me, the first evening in the local Pub, began just like that. A sea of faces that were unfamiliar, bar a few, who I had met in Melbourne before.
This is half the point of attending physical meetings, facing up to your anxieties, and putting yourself out there. It can be a challenge, in which one is often guilty of shirking, opting to remain in one’s comfort zone at home. “Come on Jake, get in there” I said to myself…
Quickly I realised however, that I’d entered a room of animated, approachable, and like-minded people, all willing to open up their conversations to anyone around them. This set the tone for the weekend, which will live long in the memory, as a critical step on my Bitcoin journey. Jigs described it excellently as a “fantastic opportunity to meet our tribe”.
What does it mean to meet your tribe? How do you know which one to choose? Why do we even need one? All important questions, with no obvious answer, however after this experience I do feel closer to where I want to be.
It’s almost as if I didn’t understand what I was looking for, until I made the effort to attend an event like this in person, to witness the profound societal shift that Bitcoin is empowering. Old and young, all shapes and sizes, congregating in a remote part of Australia to share ideas, showcase innovation, and connect on an emotional level.
On reflection I’ve found a community willing to ask hard questions:
What is money?
What is freedom?
What is privacy?
A community happy to collaborate with shared skills:
Engineers.
Entrepreneurs.
Farmers
A community connected by a clear set of values:
Family.
Honesty.
Truth
The only tricky bit, is working out who the hell one is chatting to, given half my Bitcoin Twitter friends are anonymous accounts! One can be halfway through a conversation with someone you think is a new friend, only for them to drop their anon account name, and realise you’ve been in deep discussions for months online… Likely having covered topics like the great reset, modern monetary theory, and the potential of the carnivore diet…
So in conclusion. Thank you! Thank you to all the organisers of the event, thank you to all the speakers, and thank you to all the new friends I’ve made. I am grateful to have had the chance to meet you all.
This experience has left me feeling positive, excited to see what everyone creates, and keen to explore as many opportunities as possible that come out of this. I vow to do what I can to help the community, in anyway possible, with whatever it is I can bring to the table.
As my wife likes to remind me, “you can’t live in a Bitcoin”, but with a community of people like this around you one undoubtedly feels stronger; summarised excellently by The Wizard of Aus himself: “Bullish Bitcoiners”.