Bitcoin Amsterdam: BTC shines in depths of crypto bear market

Bitcoin’s (BTC) value proposition continues to be a source of confidence for investors and proponents amid prevailing depressed market conditions for the wider cryptocurrency space.

This was a key takeaway from in-depth interviews with Bitcoin developers, advocates, analysts and influential figures during the Bitcoin Amsterdam conference hosted at Westergas in Oct. 2023.

Jameson Lopp, CEO of Bitcoin custody firm Casa, provides food for thought with less than a year to go before Bitcoin’s next mining reward halving. In conversation with Cointelegraph, the Bitcoin advocate and software engineer says that BTC’s value proposition has been a proverbial stronghold through months of tough market conditions:

“During the bear market, so many people have lost money on all these other tokens. Once again, Bitcoin is shining as the safer asset.”

Dylan LeClair is another prominent voice in the Bitcoin space that continues to advocate the fundamentals of the asset amid an unprecedented economic landscape in the United States. The Bitcoin analyst tells Cointelegraph that the average investor continues to “passively plow” into a basket of government bonds and U.S. companies in the hopes of making money over the long term.

Related: Bitcoin Amsterdam: Focus on BTC fundamentals, says Edward Snowden

LeClair admits that while no analyst can guarantee returns on investments on any one asset or vehicle, there is an increasingly strong argument for the long term potential of Bitcoin:

“Nothing is guaranteed, but its fundamentals suggest that in a very long time frame you’re going to be securing a very good store of value. Like how people used to buy property or buy gold, whereas it has digital characteristics.”

The analyst adds that Bitcoin continues to be a means for citizens of countries facing hyperinflation to safeguard and control their wealth:

“The people using Bitcoin, the true adopters, have more conviction than ever and it’s more widespread than ever. People in third world countries are using Bitcoin not because it’s fashionable or hyped. It’s because they’re using it to save them from losing everything.”

Cointelegraph journalist Joe Hall (right) hosts a panel featuring Rene Pickhardt and Jimmy Song during Bitcoin Amsterdam 2023.

Meanwhile Jimmy Song, Bitcoin developer and educator, tells Cointelegraph that alt coins have detracted from the transformational potential of Bitcoin by “muddying the waters between centralization and decentralization”:

“We’re seeing how a lot of people think that Sam Bankman-Fried is somehow the CEO of Bitcoin – it’s just dirtying Bitcoin’s good name.”

Song also suggests that various cryptocurrency projects have co-opted Bitcoin’s reputation for their own gain, which has left unsuspecting investors the ultimate losers:

“People get confused, they get screwed out of it and then they swear off crypto forever or something like that, not having ever understood anything about it.”

Prince Filip Karađorđević of Serbia spoke to Cointelegraph just before hosting a one-on-one with president Miguel Albuquerque of Madeira. The autonomous Portuguese archipelago is set to launch a Bitcoin business hub as a means to drive adoption of the cryptocurrency.

Karađorđević has become a Bitcoin advocate in recent years and now works for Jan3, a Bitcoin firm founded by Samson Mow that is looking to drive nation-state use of BTC. Conversations centered around the potential of Bitcoin highlighted how the digital asset has different value propositions for developed, developing and first world economies.

“In developing countries you’ll see much more adoption there. Countries that really have double and triple digit inflation, you’re Lebanon’s, Nigeria’s, Argentina’s.”

Meanwhile developed nations like America, United Kingdom, France and Switzerland will have varying degrees of adoption dependent on regulation and education.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden also stressed the importance of Bitcoin in combatting tyranny and governmental overreach while providing individual sovereignty of wealth during a virtual address during the 2023 conference in Amsterdam.

Magazine: ‘Elegant and ass-backward’: Jameson Lopp’s first impression of Bitcoin

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