The Shitcoin conference was just held in Miami on June 3rd and 4th, just down the road from this year’s largest crypto event, the Bitcoin conference. According to the Shitcoin conference website, “Shitcoin 2021 is dedicated to all the companies that got turned away from participating in one of the largest crypto events.” the event slogan is “because F*ck Maximalism,” and I agree!
The event was masterminded by Kenn Bosak, a Bitcoiner since 2015. Bosak has traveled around the world attending over 200 Blockchain conferences, also happens to be one of the most well known NFT creators and influencers in the Wax blockchain ecosystem. Kenn is great at creating an engaged and loyal community. I have seen first hand his generosity and commitment to his community and in helping others get into the NFT space. He was actually one of the influencers who made me fall in love with what I saw going on in the Wax NFT community.
One of the key takeaways I received from Kenn was that there is a shift taking place right now. Especially within the creative spaces wherein NFT creators and companies need to transition from acquiring customers to creating communities. This is all made more possible via the use of non-fungible tokens.
The wild, free and open vibe of the Shitcoin conference was evident as soon as you walked in the door. While I did not attend the Bitcoin conference for several reasons, the main one being that I am not a maximalist and personally believe that attitude to be completely anti-innovation, I did run into some incredible characters that I connected with who did attend the Bitcoin conference. One of them goes by the name @hyperspek who had this to say about the Bitcoin conference:
“The Bitcoin maxis really seemed to have blinders to the future of blockchain innovation. Understandable for some who still have PTSD from getting rekt last cycle. As they try to adapt an “old” technology not really designed for these applications, they will get left for dead by what is happening on ETH and other platforms.”
Hyperspek is an investor and NFT collector who also happens to be a virtual gallery builder. He showed me his gallery in Crypto Voxels and it was amazing, he likes to make art with other art and is quite good at doing so! His attention to details and his creativity was impressive. You can check out his awesome collection and gallery here
To me personally, being a Bitcoin maximalist is like saying “I like airplanes and what they allow, but not helicopters, planes without props or jet engines.
This kind of thinking is nonsensical and will not pass muster in the grand scheme of technological innovation. There will be many protocols, many will fail, but innovation and experimentation will dictate what survives.
The stark contrast of the Shitcoin conference and crowd was much more open to new ideas, fun, and was largely centered around NFTS. The atmosphere was younger, less refined, more tolerant, and brimming with excitement for the future of NFTs and blockchain technology. It seems quite evident that there will be another event next year because the demand from the community is definitely there. Next year’s event will almost certainly be a few blocks away from the next Bitcoin conference as a statement against the very term “Shitcoin.” Meant to encompass everything that is not Bitcoin, to include non-fungible tokens, and create something which the community can embrace and own.
The lineup of speakers at this year’s Shitcoin conference can be seen here, and I am sure next year’s event will improve on this. Some interesting concepts that were discussed while I attended were: the fractionalized ownership of assets by blockcities, regenerative farming, and how blockchain can play a role during the Blockchain for Impact panel. In this particular talk, Irina Litchfield, founder of Blockchain -Cubed, a blockchain technology consulting firm and adviser for Prochain Capital, discussed some innovative solutions.
From Crypto hedge fund managers to NFT artists, defi protocol developers to musicians, comedians to filmmakers. The diversity represented within this year’s Shitcoin conference is more reflective in my opinion of what the future of NFTs and blockchain looks like. In all fairness, I do believe that an overwhelming majority of the crypto community are not in the cult of Bitcoin maximalist and do support innovation and advancement within this space.
