Project:Bitcoin/Bitcoin Weekend 2011

About

A weekend of talks, discussions and workshops for Bitcoin contributors, domain experts from a wide range of fields, enthusiasts, and everyone curious about Bitcoin. This is a great chance for everyone to meet new people and learn new things.

We will discuss the code, the infrastructure, the community, the legal and political implications; we will look into the mechanisms of currency systems, security concerns of running Bitcoin infrastructure, and run workshops that show you how to participate.

As the Bitcoin community grew it has become harder to separate hype from fact, charlatans from helpful guides. We will attempt to bring clarity, and to critique the Bitcoin system and community with a sober attitude. Yet we want to bear in mind that any social experiment worth having requires a minimum of anarchy, playfulness, and suspension of disbelief.

The event will happen over a weekend:

• On Saturday, 24 Sept 2011 from 14:00-18:00 we will have talks and discussions.
• On Sunday, 25 Sept 2011 from 14:00-18:00 we will have workshops.

The event itself is free to attend, however you need to register so we know how many people to expect. Make sure to register early; we will make an attempt at managing a waiting list should that become necessary. Attendance will be in the low dozens rather than hundreds, but (as you may know know) the London Hackspace draws a passionate crowd of specialists and hackers of all kinds of interesting backgrounds.

Features

• Bitcoin cake
• Bitcoin live song performance
• Documentary showing
• Domain experts from a broad range of fields: IT infrastructure, open source software, law, economics, ...
• Talks, discussions, workshops

About Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or manages transactions—these tasks are carried out collectively by the network. It is also the name of the open source software designed in order to use this currency. The software is a community-driven open source project, released under the MIT license.

Learn more about it here:

• WeUseCoins.com
• bitcoin.org

Schedule

(This is a draft and will change a lot.)

Day 0

• 14:00 Keynote by Amir Taaki (10 mins)
• 14:15 Bitcoin song (10 mins)
• 14:20 "How bitcoin works" video by John Baker (10 mins)
• 14:35 Information bazaar by Jamileh Taaki (10 mins)
• 14:50 Break (15 mins)
• 15:05 Technical talk by Amir Taaki (15 mins)
• 15:20 Mining talk by Vladimir Marchenko (15 mins)
  • Getting started with bitcoin mining
  • Common mining rig designs
  • Common software
  • Using bitcoin mining pools (do's and dont's)
  • Bitcoin mining axioms.
• 15:40 Geek discussion (30 mins)
• 16:10 Break (15 mins)
• 16:25 Legal talk by Jason Chia (15 mins)
• 16:45 Economics talk by Gary Mulder (15 mins)
  • What is money?
  • Bitcoin inflation vs. government fiat inflation.
  • Investing in bitcoins.
  • Future of bitcoins.
• 17:00 Economics open discussion (30 mins)
  • John Barrdear
  • Andrew Sissons
  • Tom Lorber
• 17:30 Roundtable with speakers and audience (30 mins)
• 18:00 End (5 mins)

Day 1

• 14:00 Security talk by Vladimir Marchenko (30 mins)
  • Security is not a state, it is a process.
  • How to do quick and simple risk assessment
  • How to safeguard your bitcoin wallet
  • How to safely operate bitcoin mining machines.
• 14:30 Practical bitcoin workshop by TBC (1 hour)
• 15:30 Break (30 mins)
• 16:00 Developer workshop - use bitcoin on a simple PHP website by Amir Taaki (2 hours)

Speakers and Doman Experts

Vladimir Marchenko

Vladimir Marchenko is a seasoned IT professional who has run a FIDO node in Russia in early 90's, worked for Russian Ministry of Defence, worked for companies such as Coca-Cola, Pipex, Ebuyer, founded and run a number of private companies in UK. He is known as an author of the p2p websites filedonkey and figator. Vladimir is currently running a private supercomputer, which is one of the largest private Bitcoin mining operations in the UK and probably the world.

• Founder and owner of bitcoin.org.uk
• Bitcoin Mining Operations Management Service under Marchenko Ltd
• Developed the figator.org search engine.

Amir Taaki

Another lover of all things free. Known by nickname genjix.

• libbitcoin - first full-node alternative implementation of the bitcoin protocol.
• Co-founder of Bitcoin Consultancy
• Owner and operator of Britcoin (largest UK exchange) and the new exchange (soon to replace Britcoin) for USD, EUR and GBP, Intersango.
• Freecoin bitcoin fork.
• Other stuff like vibanko wallet service, bitcoin poker client, Spesmilo thin-GUI, pastecoin and others...
• Been around free software fulltime for 10 years. Was into 3D before.

Interviews:

• BBC World News (Spanish)
• Guardian
• The Independent
• Russia Today: Keiser Report
• This Week In Startups

Jason Chia

Jason Chia is a member of the Bitcoin Consultancy and a barrister in the UK specialising in corporate law.

Gary Mulder

Gary first encountered the Internet in 1992 and has bounced around the world and the IT industry for nearly 20 years. Realising that there was more money to be made in investing than being a wage slave, he decided to learn as much as he could about economics. In Gary's opinion, Bitcoins are both a pure artifact of the Internet and a very interesting financial experiment with many potential novel applications.

Other Domain Experts

• John Barrdear is an economics graduate student at the London School of Economics. He has a first degree in Computer Systems Engineering, which is this context is a very useful combination.
• Andrew Sissons of the Work Foundation.
• Tom Lorber has a BA in economics, worked on the FT's finance newsdesk during the onset of the financial crisis, and is now working as a management consultant.
• Catherine Flick is a researcher in technology ethics at Middlesex University. She started investigating the potential social and ethical impact of Bitcoin, and is currently evaluating a first survey.