First Impressions: A Grey Hangar That Turns Electric Inside

I arrived at the PVA exhibition centre in Prague for BTC 2026. Outside it was grey, rainy and quiet, and picking up the ticket did not feel special. The venue looks like a hangar, and my first reaction was slight disappointment.

But once I stepped inside, the atmosphere changed. The crowd, the noise and the Bitcoin energy pulled me back. The main stage was on the left, and I recognised familiar names: Adam Back, Michael Saylor and Stephan Livera. I like neither Adam Back nor Michael Saylor personally, but I respect both enormously. Stephan Livera is a guy I genuinely like. His pedagogy and podcast are excellent, and I recommend him to anyone who can follow English content.

Walking the Floor: Cold Wallets, KYC and a 600 Euro Hammer

The floor had the usual mix: miners, book signings and plenty of stands. I stopped by a Bitcoin ATM that displayed MiCA compliance. That disappointed me. Before MiCA, a Bitcoin ATM was one of the few ways to buy and sell bitcoin without KYC. Now you need to send your passport or ID, just like on an exchange. In Europe, this privacy route is closing, and I noticed the contrast with events in China and Korea, where people tend to focus more on multiplying money than on sovereignty.

I was glad to see Trezor with its 'Take Control' message and K Wallet, an open source Lightning wallet. These products reflect the self-custody mindset I like in the Western Bitcoin scene. There was also a decentralised gaming zone, which is rare at crypto conferences, and a beer stand where you could pay via Lightning. Prague has a BTC Map listing merchant locations, and that kind of real-world payment infrastructure matters to me.

Art is always present at Bitcoin conferences, and here I saw works full of symbolism, including one referencing the mask from V for Vendetta with a bitcoin grenade. It is not my usual collecting habit, but some pieces carry real emotion. The conference also had fun ways to recoup your ticket: a strength hammer game where a good score could win 600 euros. I joked that my conference tickets are never really profitable because I end up in Michelin restaurants, but for travellers there are always ways to offset costs.

The Institutional Virus Is Creeping In

I liked stands like The Bitcoin Way, which talks about second passports, autonomy and a borderless life. I have followed the five flags theory for about twenty years and first met Peter Schiff through that world, so these ideas resonate with me.

What bothers me is the growing presence of institutions, state representatives and politicians at Bitcoin events. I felt it at Bitcoin Las Vegas and again in Dallas with US congress members. There is a virus attacking Bitcoin, trying to co-opt it. The event is still pleasant, but the original decentralised, bottom-up vibe is being diluted by capital and marketing.

Adam Back Is Probably Not Satoshi, but He Used the Doubt Cleverly

Now to the Satoshi drama. Adam Back said he is not Satoshi, but before the documentary came out he did everything to fuel doubt. He gave long interviews with journalists, dropped hints and let the speculation build. Once the buzz peaked, he stepped back and said a real Satoshi would not have been so publicly visible for 17 years.

The study behind the documentary claimed 99.5% confidence that Back wrote the white paper. Maybe he did write the white paper, but that does not make him Satoshi. In crypto, the person who writes code, the person who has the idea and the person who writes the white paper are often different. Satoshi could have been a group of four or five people, or one person who hired a writer. To me, Hal Finney was the technical mind behind the code. He had ALS, lost his speech and memory, and is now cryopreserved. I think the real Satoshi took the keys with him, and that may be for the best.

Why did Back encourage the mystery? Simple: his company Blockstream needed visibility. He got free marketing, and the journalists thought they had unmasked Satoshi. In reality, Back used the media to put the spotlight on himself and his business. That is not a very Satoshi-like approach.

Michael Saylor: A CEO Working for Shareholders, Not for Bitcoiners

Michael Saylor told everyone he would never sell bitcoin, then he sold. I was not surprised. Saylor is not a bitcoiner in the philosophical sense. He is the CEO of a publicly traded company, and he works for his shareholders. He personally holds around 20,000 bitcoin, and his company holds about 845,000. Pumping bitcoin benefits both, but his legal duty is to the company.

He sold roughly 32 bitcoin for about 2.5 million dollars at around 77,135 dollars per coin, and later bought back at around 65,332 dollars. He framed this as a market vaccine: by showing that selling bitcoin does not crash the world, he reassures institutional investors. He also picked his moment, late May or early June, when geopolitical instability and IPOs like SpaceX were draining liquidity. Selling into that and rebuying lower was a calculated trade.

The whole thing is accounting and maths, and he has calculated it long in advance. He is willing to deliver 10 percent per year to shareholders while the company captures 20 to 32 percent. He is extremely intelligent, but he is not here to make you rich or to build a decentralised world. He will say whatever serves the company, especially now that he is close to politics. Politicians are allowed to lie, and Saylor's promise not to sell was a political lie. I respect his intelligence, but I do not like the way he has become a Bitcoin prophet.

The Real Heroes Deserve the Headlines

The people who should be on the main stage are those working on daily adoption. My First Bitcoin is building circular economies in Kenya. Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador does real grassroots work. K Wallet is open source and self-custody. The Bitcoin Way promotes freedom and second passports. These are the projects that match the original vision, but they are not headliners because the crowd often prefers quick gains and ETF-like convenience.

I understand human psychology: most people want to make money fast without changing their habits. That is exactly what institutions, marketers and politicians exploit. They use the same manipulation I saw in my import-export career, and now they are using it to take control of Bitcoin. It saddens me, but it is an old story.

Coffee Paid in Bitcoin and the Business of Conferences

After the conference, I went to a Bitcoin coffee bar in Prague. It had been open only a few months, and the owner told me there are still not many places in the city that accept bitcoin, contrary to what the BTC Map stand suggested. The setting was beautiful, with a park behind, and paying for coffee in Lightning in a real city felt good.

Conferences themselves are a business. I was invited to BTC Prague, but I remember Paris Blockchain Week where the ticket was around 1,600 euros. For Bitcoin Las Vegas, I paid for two whale tickets at 10,000 dollars each. In New Zealand, where I have my farm, local meetups are free and happen monthly in bars. As Bitcoin grows, commercialisation follows, and that creates a tension between the bottom-up revolution and the top-down capital machine.

Bitcoin Belongs to Everyone, Even Those I Dislike

I first used Bitcoin as a payment tool for international transfers, and I still believe that is its deepest value. The permissionless nature of Bitcoin means anyone can use it, including institutions and politicians. They have the same freedom we do, and we cannot stop them.

We chose this system by supporting Bitcoin, so we have to accept that everyone will use it as they want. Adam Back can play media games, Saylor can trade for shareholders, and grassroots builders can keep teaching people to use bitcoin daily. That is the game. I will keep pointing out what I see, but I will also keep paying for coffee in Bitcoin, because that small act still feels like the real thing.