Five Stalls That Caught My Attention At Bitcoin 2022’s Bitcoin Bazaar

Bitcoin 2022 was home to high-profile keynotes, announcements and panel discussions. But the plebs had their spotlight as well. The Bitcoin Bazaar was the place to get to know some of the most interesting projects in Bitcoin merch — not necessarily world-changing but definitely uplifting.

Panties For Bitcoin

“BTC — Be Truly Confident”

— Panties for Bitcoin

What I first considered as a whacky Bitcoiner meme turned out to be high-quality, Italian-made lingerie run by a lovable family. Pablo, the mastermind behind the business, is an Argentinian emigrant with decades of experience in the underwear industry and a passion for money free from government intrusion. Several years ago, he combined his two obsessions and founded Panties for Bitcoin. With “no more fiat panties” and “Be Truly Confident” as company mottos, Pablo and his family — his wife Silvia and his son Michael — do their part for the circular economy, offering a 10% discount on orders paid in bitcoin.

Check the panties out at pantiesforbitcoin.com. For now, only ladies’ lingerie is offered, though the family is considering launching a men’s line as well.

Buzz It Forward

“Look better. Feel better. Do better.”

— Buzz It Forward

Every large conference seems to have a barber these days, and the Miami gathering was no exception. Buzz It Forward wasn’t offering just a haircut, though; the project’s mission is to help disadvantaged children and juveniles through sponsored haircuts and mentoring. So whoever had a haircut at the conference actually sponsored three haircuts for those that can’t afford it; the idea being that a good-looking hairline could be the decisive factor for landing a first job for a 16-year-old, or otherwise help in similar situations. When asked about accepting bitcoin as a payment, the (very likable) barber at the booth answered that it’s still a new thing for them, but they believe it’s the future.

You can check this project out at Buzzitforward.com.

Coinertime Blockwatch

“Goodbye factory time. Hello Bitcoin Standard Time (BST).”

— Coinertime

Do you need to check “Moscow Time” several times a day? Do you have an obsession of checking whether blocks are ticking at an average 10-minute pace? Well fret no further, as you can now switch from fiat time to a universal Bitcoiner time with Blockwatch! This neat wearable allows you to switch between Moscow Time (sats per 1 USD), current block height, and a QR code of one’s public key. Fiat UTC time is available as well, but only as a flash function when certain buttons are pressed.

Coinertime (the company behind Blockwatch) is from Florida, accepts only Bitcoin via BTCPay Server for their product, and sticks to an open-source philosophy, with both the watch hardware and software available under an MIT license. Blockwatch is a hobby side project for the Coinertime team, their main business being Bentaus, a Bitcoin mining company that aims to build small-scale mining farms in all 50 states.

Check ‘em out at coinertime.com.

Mear One

“Bitcoin embodies this revolution — it is the most important one of our time with a currency I can get behind, offering a new alternative economy based on non confiscatable sound money principles. It liberated me as an artist and in many ways, like graffiti art, saved my life a second time by empowering me to continue on creating conscious art for a community that reflects this same sentiment – Bitcoin is the new graffiti.”

— Mear One

There were quite a few artists at the Bazaar, and Mear One was the one that caught my attention due to his kickass T-shirt designs. Unfortunately, we only managed time for a brief chat, so I fully appreciated his work only after the conference, when I had a chance to look through his work in detail. To my delight, I found out that Mear One designed the album cover of Non Phixion’s “Future is Now” — one of my favorite hip hop albums of all time!

one of my fav moments was the pre-show of this masterpiece – it was still wet! @mearone@chinacatpunkpic.twitter.com/dGDP4MGY81

— tommy, wartime 🎖🐸☠️ #FreeRoss ⛓️ (@YungGucciT) April 18, 2022

Link to tweet.

Mear One is based in Los Angeles and he drove across the entire United States to come to Miami.

Check out his work at Mearone.com, and read his thoughts on Bitcoin and art here at Bitcoin Magazine.

SHAmory

“It’s always best to have the help of a pal.

So Satoshi called a monster friend named Hal.”

— Goodnight Bitcoin

Bitcoin has been around for 13 years, and as it comes of age, Bitcoiners mature as well. While the mainstream journalists still paint us as youngsters chasing their Lambo dreams, in reality a growing number of us are 35+ years old with low-time preference values such as a spouse and many kids. And in every Bitcoiner’s household, the kids are inevitably going to ask: “What’s that Bitcoin thing you talk about all the time, Dad?” “Mom, Dad wants to give me my allowance in sats, what’s that?” “Who’s that Satoshi guy you keep on mentioning?” and so on. So naturally, we need child-friendly resources that help the young ones learn about the orange coin.

Scott and Mallory Sibley were in a similar situation, so they created SHAmory, a memory-inspired card game about bitcoin mining. SHAmory is a simple game that even a three-year-old can play (personally verified claim 🙂 ), and it explains the basic mechanics of mining while introducing relevant terms such as “nonce,” “block,” “reward” into the vocabulary.

SHAmory by itself would be pretty cool, but Scott and Mallory also wrote and illustrated “Goodnight Bitcoin,” a simple story in verse about Satoshi, Hal and the creation of Bitcoin. The best part? Both SHAmory and “Goodnight Bitcoin” feature the same, cute monster-themed artwork, so kids naturally fall in love with both.

Find out all about SHAmory at SHAmory.com.

Soul, Sparkle And Smile Of Bitcoin

Besides Bitcoin Bazaar, there were many interesting booths that filled the huge Expo Hall. This was the place to be if you wanted to meet your favorite Bitcoiners (I finally got some of Mandrik’s legendary baklava!), get a book signed by Saifedean Ammous or Allen Farrington, or shop for a new hardware wallet. To be honest, I enjoyed the time mingling with the plebs in the booth maze more than any of the talks. You can always watch the talks online later, but you can’t ever recreate the feeling of meeting new friends, exploring the niches of the buzzing Bitcoiner culture, or — if you’re manning a company booth — getting firsthand feedback from your users.

Bitcoin 2022 was awesome; not so much for the high-profile keynotes, but rather for meeting the fellow orange-pilled Bitcoiners who add the soul, smile and sparkle to the monetary revolution.

This is a guest post by Josef Tětek. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

Just the Facts: An Unembellished Examination of Ross Ulbricht’s Arrest

The Let’s Talk Bitcoin Network hosts several podcasts for regular discussion topics in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency, including the popular weekly show What Bitcoin Did. As a special event, however, What Bitcoin Did has partnered with the campaign to free Ross Ulbricht to host a detailed analysis of Ulbricht’s arrest and imprisonment, Railroaded, on the LTB Network.

Peter McCormack, the host of What Bitcoin Did, has worked closely with the #FreeRoss campaign in the past, having interviewed Lyn Ulbricht multiple times. For this series, however, McCormack took a completely different approach: All of the information featured on the podcast is part of the public record, with no subjective narratives personally delivered by any member of the Ulbricht family or the #FreeRoss campaign.

This distinction becomes more and more necessary as the program goes on, as the level of corruption and incompetence displayed by members of various law enforcement agencies beggars belief.

Part One of the series focuses on the large extent to which Ross Ulbricht divested himself from the Silk Road’s operation only months before the investigation took its first steps. This nuance, however, is quickly dwarfed by the extent to which bad faith and departmental squabbling inside Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and other agencies made a frame-up job necessary if the government was to make a case at all — even if it had to be a fraudulent one.

Just as HSI agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan submitted his initial report targeting Mark Karpeles as the suspected bankroller of the Silk Road, one Agent McFarland from the Baltimore department of HSI began to use Der-Yeghiayan’s information to take control of the case himself.

Part Two examines the missteps of the investigation, from the innocuous blunders to the actions of outright fraud. McFarland’s “investigation” directly alerted Karpeles that the federal government was looking into him, allowing him to cover his tracks and escape prosecution entirely. Several of McFarland’s agents directly stole more than 20,000 bitcoins from Silk Road accounts, framing one of the Silk Road’s associate cocaine traffickers for the theft. By allowing Karpeles to escape prosecution, it appears that the agents ensured that the court would not discover Karpeles’ ledgers or their own names on them.

Part Three goes on to detail the attempts to pin Ross Ulbricht to the entire administration of the Silk Road, as investigators used information that did not come up as a result of their investigative methods, but rather as part of a pay-for-play scheme with parties on the Silk Road. This information was then doctored after the fact to place Ulbricht under suspicion, making it appear as if the officers had simply discovered it through routine observation. Although investigators discovered several “vital pieces of evidence” by improper methods, many such items appear to have been passed off in court as the products of organic discovery.

Without a warrant, they monitored internet communications from Ulbricht’s house to further build this so-called evidence before arresting him. Ulbricht was the most credible remaining patsy for the investigation: Karpeles had already taken steps to protect himself, and whatever anonymous individual was behind the account running the Silk Road on a day-by-day basis had also managed to buy information about the case for astronomical sums of bitcoins. With this knowledge, these people were able to stay several steps ahead of the prosecution and evade further scrutiny. Ulbricht was the only one left unawares, largely due to his lack of actual involvement.

In Part Four, we learn the details of some of the steps that prosecutors took to make the evidence more presentable to a court, including taking data from Ulbricht’s computers through methods that would make it laughably easy to tamper with said data. The political impetus behind the Silk Road case is also put on full display, as federal prosecutors became determined to make an example of whomever could be blamed for the Silk Road’s existence and operation.

Part Five details the final steps of the conviction and sentencing in the Ulbricht case, fatefully including the detail that the prosecution referenced “murders” conducted over the actions of Silk Road, despite the fact that no such actions ever occurred, nor was Ulbricht involved in the hypothetical discussion of such acts.

The series concludes with Part Six, covering the events after Ulbricht’s sentencing, including the efforts to expose some of the corruption undertaken by law enforcement officers on the case, as well as the beginnings of the #FreeRoss campaign.

Ultimately, the members of the campaign and associates of the LTB podcast network recognize that efforts to spread awareness of Ulbricht’s plight are the best strategy for advocating for his release. The #FreeRoss campaign’s petition for clemency already has more than 100,000 signatures and that number is still growing.

Happy Birthday, Bitcoin! A Letter From Ross Ulbricht

Happy Birthday, Bitcoin!

Bitcoin is turning ten, and like many of us, I feel like a proud parent, having watched it grow into its potential over the years. I guess I’m the estranged father in prison though, who can’t be there to help raise his kid.

Bitcoin: Mommy, when’s Daddy coming home?

Mommy: He’ll come home as soon as he can, sweetie.

Bitcoin: Why did he leave us, Mommy?

Mommy: I’ll explain when you’re older. Now run along and play blockchain with the other cryptos.

Bitcoin as a 10-year-old kid is not a bad analogy. The technology is still very young, still growing. It’s been shooting up like a weed and been through some growing pains, but it’s barely a pre-teen and has the rocky road of adolescence still ahead. It’s something we all have to go through to mature into adults, to discover who we are, and Bitcoin is no different.

We will see in the years ahead what Bitcoin is capable of, how it will be used, and the impact it will have on our world. I have high hopes that our gifted child will exceed everyone’s expectations and go on to greatness, but it is still a child that must be nurtured and protected.

Bitcoin needs us to continue guiding it with the values it was founded on, that gave it its potential. We must keep our focus on decentralization, privacy and empowering individuals. We are Bitcoin’s advocates and representatives. How far it goes and what it becomes in the crucial years ahead will depend on us. It is a technology with the power to make abstractions like peace and equality into reality. But it’s up to us to embody such ideals and be role models for the ever-growing Bitcoin community and for Bitcoin itself.

I’m so excited for what’s to come in the next ten years, for Bitcoin and all of its crypto cousins. I just hope I can come home and make up for these lost years and show everyone where my heart truly is.

This is a guest post by Ross Ulbricht. It was shared, with permission, with Bitcoin Magazine by Ross’s mother, Lyn Ulbricht. To learn more about Ross, sign his petition for clemency, and support the campaign to free him, please visit freeross.org. Follow @free_ross, @RealRossU and the #freeross hashtag on Twitter. Visit Free Ross on Facebook and freerossulbricht on Instagram.