I just came back from a month-long hiatus after the BTCHEL 2025 execution.
The first-ever large-scale bitcoin conference in the Nordics got together a thousand attendees, twenty businesses, and seventy speakers from all around the world on three stages. At least 5 different traditional media outlets covered it. It was truly a phenomenon that we had not seen before in this part of the world.
First of all. Thanks to everyone involved. Thanks to the best possible team of organizers, the relentless dedication of this team made BTCHEL truly magical. Thanks to so many voluntary contributors in the active community here in Helsinki. You know who you are. Thanks to the sponsors for putting your blind bet on me so early on, without you taking the risk with me, none of this would have happened in the first place.
I have now rested, reassessed, and I'm ready for the next challenge. Stay tuned for the new website, dates, early bird tickets, and all the build-up shenanigans we are going to come up with.
I'd like to highlight some of the publications and spin-offs that spun out of BTCHEL:
1. A Portrait article of Martti Malmi : by the Finnish equivalent of the Economist
2. "Bitcoin-miners love Finland all of a sudden, here's why:" By the Finnish equivalent of the Financial Times
3. Finland Joins the Bitcoin Conference Map with BTCEL: an interview by the Bitcoin Magazine
4. A global Mining-focused online news site notices BTCHEL and its unique agenda by European Bitcoin Energy Association e. V.
5. "Bitcoin is still Punk after all" - An essay by me in Helsinki uni student mag, Bitcoin argued through a leftist lense to fit the audience.
6. "Bitcoin saves the world" - Bitcoin fans gather in Helsinki to host an outworldly conference: a report by the Finnish equivalent of the Financial Times
7. An article about BTCHEL was the most-read news article of the day. Our ability to achieve virality has been shown on many platforms.
8. "For a Rainy Day - HS Visio joins a bitcoin conference in Helsinki. Attendees all united under orange and in the belief that bitcoin is omnipotent." An in-depth article about the conference through the lense of the reporter and an attendee. Very well written and received tons of lovely feedback from the local community. Thanks again for Alex af Heurlin for this piece.
9. "Diversification with the help of Bitcoin" Front page in the largest Finnish Swedish newspaper in Finland!
10. "Two members of the National Coalition party Tere Sammallahti and Martin Paasi : The government of Finland should own Bitcoin - Sammallahti estimates the strategic reserve could be the size of some billion euros. Paasi doesn't estimate the possible size of the reserve"
Spin-offs that BTCHEL planted the seed for include many popular podcasts, including a show with an elected official talking about mining and its potential for our country. Also, we saw a new bitcoin-related start-up to be founded in the Founders Sauna - a side-event for start-up founders called Bitcoin Beef Bits, which dries meat with the waste heat generated by mining and sells them as snacks. A new student organization was formed right after BTCHEL, called Aalto Bitcoin , that seeks to keep the flame of BTCHEL and accelerate the local adoption among the youth. The Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy is now calling together the field in Finland to be heard in a round table setting, and I personally got invited to represent BTCHEL in there.
BTCHEL truly pushes the field as a whole forward here like no other.
Last weekend @coinjoined and I spent the day in the park with @peterktodd, filming peer-to-peer bitcoin convos on rollercoasters 🎢⚡
100 reposts = @Slush lets us expense the tickets.
Episode 1 kicks off with us roasting @peterktodd for that tweet he got paid for… in Solana 🤮
https://t.co/AIecSDmaBP
I had the privilege to be interviewed by the great @joakimbook for this quick article (it's a 5-minute read).
BTCHEL is the fastest-growing, most spoken about, upcoming alternative event in the bitcoinsphere.
Check it out and pass it on!
We reached 2K followers! 🧡
To celebrate this, lets draw some tickets! 🥳
2 Standard 2-day tickets for you and your friend!🥂
1. Like 2. Follow 3. post a meme in the comments ⤵️
Winner will be chosen in a week! 🥇
The founder arc:
– I can’t believe no one’s done this
– I’m gonna build it
– Wait someone did
– But they sucked
– So I’ll do it better
– Oh god they actually didn’t suck
– I already tweeted it so I have to keep going