Video: Vitus Zeller On Team Satoshi And Bitcoin Advocacy Through Sports

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQItTifa3do

German entrepreneur and Bitcoin enthusiast Vitus Zeller began his Team Satoshi athletic initiative in January 2019. By virtue of the #TeamSatoshi hashtag (now popular among Bitcoin sports enthusiasts), a worldwide torch is passed on Twitter between marathon runners who embrace and promote the values of sound money. In this exclusive Bitcoin Magazine interview, held on the second day of The Lightning Conference in Berlin, Zeller explained how it all started and how a personal challenge grew into a global phenomenon.

From Tour de Satoshi to Team Satoshi

It all started with Zeller’s desire to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Genesis Block, so he embarked on a 10-day challenge to bike across the Swiss Alps. His journey, which he called the “Tour de Satoshi,” was more than a personal tribute to Satoshi Nakamoto: Every night, he paid for his hotel room with bitcoin as a way of raising awareness and spreading adoption. Zeller’s trial also bears the symbolism of transformation: He began riding his bicycle in the defining city of the Renaissance (Florence, Italy) and stopped in Frankfurt, Germany, at the European Central Bank.

“Tour de Satoshi was a winter bike tour through Italy, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria and Germany. I went from Florence to the European Central Bank, trying to pay every night with Bitcoin.”

-Vitus Zeller

In August 2019, Zeller upped the stakes by inviting other athletes to join a triathlon challenge across Switzerland and Germany. Seven Bitcoin enthusiasts would run, cycle and swim over a distance of 222 miles and pass a torch along the way. This effort gave birth to the Team Satoshi concept.

“We had a triathlon through Switzerland and Germany. It was joined by other bitcoiners, including Jeremias from LocalBitcoins and Anita from the ‘Bitcoin & Co.’ podcast,” said Zeller.

A Tribute to Hal Finney

Less than a month later, Team Satoshi became even more popular thanks to a tribute to Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney. As a way of remembering the day when Finney ran his last half-marathon prior to entering a phase of ALS-induced physical deterioration, bitcoiners all around the world have been encouraged to go out for a run and publish a screenshot of their performance on Twitter under the #RunForHalFin hashtag.

“We also did the memorial run for Hal Finney during which we asked bitcoiners to join for a run in memory of Hal. Ten years ago, in 2009 he ran his last half-marathon.”

-Vitus Zeller

Just a couple of months on, Team Satoshi is still expanding and spreading the word about Bitcoin and the cypherpunk values of freedom of information, human rights, free speech, privacy and freedom of transactions.

“We also started a Lightning Torch called #TSTorch or #TeamSatoshiTorch, and it’s being handed, just like the Olympic torch, from athlete to athlete,” Zeller said. “The idea is that each athlete adds the kilometers run during the trial or competition and sends that amount of satoshis to the next athlete. Yesterday, for example, we had an athlete who ran an ultramarathon in Singapore and is now handing the torch to another bitcoiner who’s running a marathon in Slovenia in the name of Team Satoshi. A week later, somebody else is running at the New York City Marathon. There is quite a lot going on and we are planning an event for the halving.”

Anyone Can Join Team Satoshi

As Zeller explained, there are no physical trials or financial requirements involved in becoming a part of Team Satoshi. Participation is voluntary and is only based on ideological compatibility and the willingness to reveal one’s identity to the public.

Furthermore, the organization is decentralized enough to allow athletes and enthusiasts to create accounts on teamsatoshi.org and create pages of their own, containing personal initiatives and trials. In the long term, this can become a fundraising platform through which athletes get funded with bitcoin.

“You just need to be a Bitcoin enthusiast who likes the cypherpunk ideas, and you need to want to put your face out there,” Zeller explained. “If you fulfill these two criteria and truly want to join Team Satoshi, you can create a login at teamsatoshi.org. You can create a page there and maybe even get your own donations and your own event sponsors.”

Satoshi Freeathlon Raises Awareness Through Sport

Triathlons are some of the most physically-demanding and spectacular athletic trials. Most of the time, this arduous display of strength and endurance has participants push their limits by swimming, cycling and running for 30 miles or more. But when spending bitcoin and promoting the principles of “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto” (including human rights, freedom of information, free speech, privacy and transaction freedom) are the fundamental goals, any sporting event becomes a lot more interesting. 

Between August 24 and August 28, 2019, seven athletes from three different nations will take on a 222 miles (357 kilometer) challenge which begins in the central city of Zug, Switzerland, and concludes in Munich, Germany. The name of the triathlon is the Satoshi Freeathlon, and its purpose is to raise public awareness around the importance of decentralization in power and money. 

Originally, Bavarian entrepreneur Vitus Zeller sought to create some positive Bitcoin-related media coverage with a 621 miles (1,000 kilometer) bicycle ride across the Swiss Alps. The initiative, which marked the 10th anniversary of Bitcoin, was called Tour de Satoshi and put him in the middle of a 10-day trip from Florence, Italy, to Frankfurt, Germany, and challenged him to pay for his hotel rooms with bitcoin. 

“I scouted more than 50 hotels to be able to stay at seven hotels,” Zeller told Bitcoin Magazine. “And doing such a crazy bike tour in winter was, in every hotel, received as a special thing. I am quite sure the staff in all of those hotels were talking about this … so I’m sure it raised attention there. Also, en route, people asked me what I was doing and why I was travelling by bike in such harsh conditions.”

After the success of this first attempt, Zeller decided to raise the bar by creating the Satoshi Freeathlon. 

“I decided to continue, because Tour de Satoshi was perceived well and I got a lot of great feedback,” Zeller said. “At bitcoin events, suddenly people came up to me and recognized me and were excited about what I did.”

This time, it’s not just about him facing a physical challenge accompanied by bitcoin alone, as six other athletes are involved. And they’ve added in a more complex trial where they must pass a Lightning torch from one to the other. During the event, spectators can make donations and basically increase the positivity of the subsequent media coverage: the more satoshis get raised, the more buzz there’s going to be around the event.

The torch concept is a mix of the Olympic flame and Hodlonaut’s #LNTrustChain initiative from earlier this year. Consequently, the participants can be followed throughout their journey via Twitter, and anyone interested can search for the #tstorch hashtag. From there, donations can be sent via Lightning Network or to the following BTC address: 173SRmGLwHW7QZDsFW9RLpggn3iBboL7Ns. In the true spirit of sportsmanship, the donations don’t get officially validated until the moment when the torch gets passed to another one of the seven athletes — call it a special timestamp, if you will. Furthermore, after each day the social media accounts will be updated with highlights of the trials.

Among the best known bitcoiners who are participating in the Freeathlon will be LocalBitcoins founder Jeremias Kangas, Bitcoin & Co. podcast host Anita Posch and Frankfurt School Blockchain Center’s Veronika Kütt. The Team Satoshi Torch (#tstorch) will be lit on August 24, 2019, by Zeller who begins his journey in Zug, and last recipient Kütt will arrive at the Southern German destination four days later. Finally, the #tstorch will be taken to the Bikini Mitte Bar, the only place in Munich where it’s possible to pay with bitcoin on the base layer or via Lightning. 

The event is meant to expand the Team Satoshi project by encouraging more athletes to get involved in promoting the philosophical values of Bitcoin. In this sense, a share of the satoshis raised will be used to support many more athletic trials involving an increasing number of enthusiasts.

“Mostly, [bitcoin] is only talked about as simply a speculative asset, drug money or an energy-consuming technology,” Zeller said. “I believe bitcoin needs more voices from within the ecosystem that show openly that they stand for this and sports is a great way of doing that. Sports have historically been a powerful tool to grab peoples’ attention and emotions.”