‘We Don’t Accept Shady Coins’ – Baltic Honey Badger Conference [Interview]

This ain’t your typical bitcoin and Blockchain conference. Bitcoinist spoke with the organizers of the Baltic Honey Badger Conference who explained what makes this event special and what to expect at this year’s event in Riga.

Bitcoinist caught up with Max Keidun and Roman Snitko, CEO and CTO of HodlHodl, the organizers of this year’s Baltic Honey Badger conference that will be held September 22-23 in Latvia’s capital, Riga.

Keidun and Snitko explain that since the Baltic Honey Badger event attracts some of the brightest minds in bitcoin since it doesn’t accept ICOs, shady coins or blockchain snake-oil salesmen.

‘we don’t accept shady coins’ – baltic honey badger conference [interview]

Max Keidun

Bitcoinist: What makes the Baltic Honey Badger conference different from other bitcoin/blockchain conferences?

HodlHodl: We do not accept ICOs, shady coins or blockchain projects as sponsors. But the most important point, we wanted to capture that cypherpunk spirit, gather all the best people in the industry to share their knowledge, wisdom, and ideas. It’s not a promotional event. We do have some sponsors, but not too many.

Bitcoinist: How did the idea for a “conference driven by the cypherpunk movement” come about? Who was responsible for it?

HodlHodl: It was just me and my co-founder. We were sitting in the kitchen together and I was telling him about how cool the 2013 San Jose bitcoin conference was and that there’s nothing like it anymore. We thought why not have it in Latvia? Surely it’s a small country but it’s right there in the middle, between Europe and Asia, it’s beautiful and not expensive. And so the Baltic Honeybadger was born.

Bitcoinist: Did you expect last year’s inaugural event to be such a huge success?

HodlHodl: Not really, took us by surprise it was so well received.

Bitcoinist: Who was your favorite speaker?

HodlHodl: Favorite speaker? Don’t think there’s a favorite, but it was very exciting to have all those people, whom you mostly know from Twitter and YouTube, come to the conference and talk to them and see what they’re like in real life. There are all sorts of interesting details to learn about them: some of them only eat meat while some of them are vegetarians, for example.

It’s very cool that it’s not just bitcoin that defines us all, but there are always so many different dimensions to a person that you can only see when you meet face to face.

And we are grateful for this chance to meet them all.

Bitcoinist: What changes can we expect this year compared to last year?

HodlHodl: Day 1 and 2 will be held at the same venue. It’s not downtown, but it’s much larger to accommodate a larger audience. We also learned our lesson from the afterparty last year, the music was too loud, so that’s not going to happen this year. And, of course, it’s going to be much much warmer this year, because it’s September and it’s really the best time to visit Riga.

Bitcoinist: Why is Riga the host city for the second year in a row? Do you have plans to host it somewhere else in the future?

HodlHodl: Why change the location that absolutely worked last time? I think the current idea is that we’re going to hold (or hodl, really) Honeybadgers in Riga exclusively. After all, it’s a Baltic Honeybadger.

Bitcoinist: How bitcoin-friendly is Latvia in general? Would you recommend using BalticAir, for example, which was the first airline to accept bitcoin directly?

HodlHodl: I wouldn’t say there are a lot of merchants but there are a couple of places downtown you can pay with BTC. And there’s certainly quite a number of bitcoin projects that originated in Latvia and the Baltic countries.

Some apartments in Riga accept BTC and yes, Airbaltic accepts bitcoin directly. I would recommend using either AirBaltic or CheapAir though because AirBaltic doesn’t cover all flight destinations. There are no bitcoin-accepting hotels, but there are few apartments that accept BTC.

Bitcoinist: There’s probably less sponsors for an event like this given the absence of altcoins, blockchain snake oil salesmen, ICO shills, and banking institutions. Is it difficult to fund such an event? Who are the sponsors?

HodlHodl: The sponsors that we have are all listed on the website. It was more difficult to fund the even last year. This year it’s slightly easier because we already knew the demand for tickets was there and we actually sold our first 100 tickets in the first couple of days after the announcement.

Bitcoinist: Can you give a sneak peek of what the agenda will be? In other words, what are the most pressing issues that should be in focus at this year’s event?

HodlHodl: The full agenda was just published on the website.

Bitcoinist: What speaker(s) do you look forward to the most this year?

HodlHodl: I think Saifedean Ammous and Eric Voskuil will be interesting to watch, they have some opposing views on the idea that bitcoin will become the new reserve currency and both are very smart and intelligent people, albeit coming from different backgrounds. And their talks are scheduled on the first day in the morning, one after another.

Bitcoinist: Do you think the typical ‘blockchain’ conferences frequented by bank reps, ICOs, and blockchain ‘influencers’ have been beneficial or detrimental to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies?

HodlHodl: I think it’s fine. People who go there realize, sooner or later, it’s all useless. Kind of a learning experience.

You can pitch your ICO or your blockchain projects to other ICO guys or blockchain guys, but hardly anyone is interested in anything other than their own project.

At Baltic Honeybadger we actually discourage pitching. That’s not what the conference is about.

Bitcoinist: Your event strives to be informative and educational to new bitcoin users. What is the most important thing that newcomers should understand about bitcoin before anything else? What do you tell people to get them interested in bitcoin?

HodlHodl: My personal experience is that different people are interested in bitcoin for many different reasons. If you want to get someone interested, find out what really matters to them and if bitcoin can offer something that would change their life for the better, then that’s what you need to explain.

Bitcoinist: Anything else you’d like to add?

HodlHodl: Yes. We still have student tickets which go at 100 EUR. If you’re a student, you get a significant discount, so come join us and learn about bitcoin.

Will you be attending this year’s Baltic Honey Badger conference? Let us know below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

Published at Tue, 07 Aug 2018 22:00:12 +0000

bitcoin

July 31, 2017

Op Ed: Launching an ICO? Follow This Advice from the SEC

Lost in the headlines over the SEC’s recent pronouncements on cryptocurrency was important practical advice for both promoters of and participants in initial coin offerings (ICOs).

Most coverage was rightfully garnered from the Report by the SEC’s enforcement division which deemed that DAO Tokens are securities, after subjecting the offering to the Howey test. However, the simultaneously issued Investor Bulletin should also be closely read by issuers of ICOs and their counsel.

Advice for Issuers and Counsel

Even though the bulletin was prepared as a cautionary statement to investors, it contains at least one disclaimer (in boldface type) that attorneys advising ICOs should add the following language to any offering document or white paper:

Investing in an ICO may limit your recovery in the event of fraud or theft. While you may have rights under the federal securities laws, your ability to recover may be significantly limited.

We have previously discussed the importance of these disclaimers and risk factors. By discussing the vulnerabilities of cryptocurrency exchanges and the potential difficulties associated with any recovery of invested or stolen funds, the SEC signals at least some of the risk factors counsel should consider adding to ICO offering materials.

In fact, prudent attorneys advising their ICO clients would be wise to employ the cut-and-paste function, adding the above caveat to all their documents.

This additional wording is significant in that it spells out three key characteristics of ICOs:

(i) the difficulty of tracing or securing virtual currency;

(ii) the international scope of ICOs; and

(iii) the fact that lack of any central authority may limit an investor’s remedies against an issuer.

Practical Advice for Investors

Besides the usual bromides about being wary of any offer that sounds “too good to be true,” the SEC demonstrated an appreciation for the unique due diligence required in carefully evaluating an ICO.

According to the bulletin, investors should “ask whether the blockchain is open and public, whether the code has been published, and whether there has been an independent cybersecurity audit.” The SEC is communicating that those factors are indicative of companies whose products are verifiably real and secure.

Given the importance the SEC placed on these three items, rather than await questions, such points should be clearly addressed by an issuer in its ICO materials distributed to potential investors. Issuers of ICOs should include those factors and other “good facts” that can help to demonstrate their product’s value, security and legitimacy.

While the recent flurry of documents emanating from the SEC likely has given issuers of ICOs and their counsel pause (and caused them to walk each token through the Howey test), it does not appear to have stifled these transactions.

However, where the report reiterates the conceptual framework under which any potential token offering be evaluated to determine whether it constitutes a securities offering, the bulletin provides practical advice, and investors should expect to see some of the SEC’s language repeated in ICO offering documents going forward.

This is a guest post by Gray Sasser and Joshua Rosenblatt. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of bitcoin Magazine or BTC Media.

The post Op Ed: Launching an ICO? Follow This Advice from the SEC appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

‘We Don’t Accept Shady Coins’ – Baltic Honey Badger Conference [Interview]

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