ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis within the Czech Republic
Pavel Sinagl
PRAGUE — In 2007, a gaggle of Czech guerrilla artists scaled a transmitter tower belonging to the country’s national television station and hacked right into a live webcam of the Krkonoše mountain range typically used in the course of the weather segment. Within the midst of a live broadcast on June 17 of that yr, the rebel collective — dubbed Ztohoven — faked a nuclear bomb detonation. Viewers watched as a camera shot panning across the landscape flashed white and revealed a mushroom cloud in the space, harking back to a war-era newsreel threatening Armageddon.
The stunt was a signature move for the consortium of Bohemian subversives, one amongst many disruptive pranks over the course of many years designed to impress onlookers and foster a way of resistance and revolt against prescribed societal norms. Ztohoven has since added the banner of crypto anarchy to its mantle, embracing the hackers and provocateurs who helped mobilize the movement since its inception.
Today, that union of minds finds refuge in Prague in a retrofitted factory constructing called Paralelní Polis, or “parallel world.” The name pays homage to Czech philosopher and dissident, Václav Benda, who coined the phrase within the Nineteen Seventies as a option to describe an emerging underground counterculture quietly subverting the ruling communist regime.
Ztohoven’s parallel world offers a unique type of anarchy. The space functions as a living example of how the world could look — a crucible for decentralized and defiant technologies designed to operate beyond the reach of governments, laws, and central banks.
It’s a spot where cryptography replaces control, cryptocurrency supplants fiat, and controversial concepts aren’t just discussed, but are lived ideologies binding people together.
For greater than two years, Dan Ligocký has been working from Polis three to 5 days every week. Ligocký, who’s an event producer with deep ties to the ethereum community, tells CNBC that the space has served as a catalyst for innovation and the exploration of decentralized technologies.
“Its commitment to privacy, freedom, and self-sovereignty aligns with the core principles of the Web3 movement,” continued Ligocký. “We’re here to support the ecosystem and are open to collaborating with anyone whose ethos aligns with ours.”
Indeed, the vast factory-turned-forum pulses with the collective energy of digital rights activists, privacy-obsessed cypherpunks, and crypto-faithful ideologues. Its diverse denizens starting from transient visitors just like the Czech prince William Lobkowicz, to ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Polis is a spot where technology, philosophy, and activism converge.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin speaks at ETHPrague 2023
Pavel Sinagl
A tale of two castles
The Czech Republic’s den of crypto anarchy sits in the center of Holešovice — a district certain by the left bank of the Vltava River to the east and Letná Hill to the west. The neighborhood was once the epicenter of commercial Prague, synonymous with slaughterhouses and steam mills, but today is home to art galleries and ateliers.
At the alternative end of the town in a district called Hradčany — about three-and-a-half miles south-west of Polis — is a 750,000 square foot castle complex that appears frozen in a Renaissance-era alternate dimension. Its imposing Gothic spires loom over the Czech capital — a vestige of a time when inherited nobility meant something quite different to the people of Prague.
Private dinner held with coders and crypto enthusiasts on the Lobkowicz Palace in Prague
MacKenzie Sigalos | CNBC
Once the seat of Bohemian kings and Holy Roman emperors, Czech presidents now occupy the castle complex — a sprawling mass of palaces, churches, towers, hidden passageways, and gardens.
Two young nobles, William and Ileana Lobkowicz, sometimes hold crypto-centric events there. Neither live on the palace, but they use the stately halls and manors once inhabited by their ancestors for industry working groups on digital assets.
A multi-day annual conference called Non-Fungible Castle is their banner event, and the siblings have also spent the previous few years tinkering with using NFTs as a option to fund restoration projects — an ambition that appears to have faded in the course of the bear market as NFT sales and costs plummet.
This summer, nevertheless, the Lobkowicz family expanded their crypto outreach efforts by hosting a number of the most established coders within the ethereum ecosystem for a one-day working session. The workshops were followed by a non-public tour of the castle and a multi-course gala dinner within the Imperial Hall at Lobkowicz Palace — an event where the conversation effortlessly shifted from Europe’s groundbreaking latest crypto law to the convergence of generative AI and blockchain tech.
Private dinner held with coders and crypto enthusiasts on the Lobkowicz Palace in Prague
MacKenzie Sigalos | CNBC
The best option to get to the palace from Polis is to walk three minutes to the Maniny station, where Tram 25 stops every ten minutes before sweeping passengers up the hill to Prašný Most, which borders the castle grounds. The intricate web of trolley rails traces Prague’s cobblestoned streets, a pattern of steel tracks etched into the old-world urban landscape, while the stoic steel and glass trams function a moving tableau of life in Prague.
Although only 25 minutes apart, the 2 locations represent the split personality of the Czech people.
One side is the storybook Prague most individuals associate with the town — soaring towers, grand chandeliers, and original frescoes. The opposite is the key Bohemian underground that has spent many years thwarting authoritarian regimes. For hundreds of years, the Czech capital has been caught between historic powers with a bent toward world domination, which has helped the populace develop a thick skin and the knowhow to fight back against the world’s biggest villains.
Private dinner held with coders and crypto enthusiasts on the Lobkowicz Palace in Prague
MacKenzie Sigalos | CNBC
“Czechs are naturally skeptical of authority, a results of the tough twentieth century during which Czechs experienced monarchy, Nazi occupation, and communist rule,” said Josef Tětek, a crypto economist and bitcoin analyst at hardware wallet provider, Trezor.
“A chief example of this skepticism is the indisputable fact that the Czech Republic never adopted the euro, although it has been a member of the European Union since 2004,” Tětek added.
Call it the last word anti-fairytale.
On this story, the predominant character is not a prince in a high castle, but a decentralized collective of shadowy coders and hackers living in pockets across Prague who sometimes converge on Polis to swap trade secrets and sound a call to motion.
The dark stucco of Polis’ Prague headquarters is an outlier among the many ornate, brightly-colored buildings that tower over it. The inside of this deceptively nondescript structure is a honeycomb of winding, labyrinthine corridors and castle-like passageways that stretch endlessly higher and deeper into its fortress-like belly.
ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis within the Czech Republic
Pavel Sinagl
The ‘parallel world’ concept is sticky.
Franchises of Polis have sprung up in Vienna, Barcelona, and two Slovak cities — a testament to the enduring allure of anarchy. The Vienna branch goes to date as to self-describe as a living example of how “the Paralelní Polis cryptoliberation virus is spreading.”
These hubs share certain physical features — there are co-working tables for hire, conference halls for hackathons and blockchain-specific meet-ups, in addition to spaces dedicated to experimental tech, where you’ll be able to dabble with 3D printing and laser cuts.
Along with hosting regular bitcoin and ethereum meetups, the Bratislava chapter also holds sessions dedicated to biohacking — or augmenting the human body with tech custom-engineered to create a latest breed of superhumans. On the opposite side of Slovakia, in Košice, the Polis offers formal lectures and technical support, where locals can drop by for impromptu consultations on how blockchain and cryptocurrencies can support their business.
One other common fixture across these chapters is the so-called Institute of Cryptoanarchy, a type of sub-franchise that gives free educational resources and classes to people keen to learn more in regards to the unregulated web, in addition to the anonymous tools — blockchain-based virtual currencies and anti-spyware encryption protocols — that might help power a decentralized economy.
ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis within the Czech Republic
Pavel Sinagl
The crypto education helps with spurring adoption and enlisting more troops to the cause.
Today’s enemy is a little bit different than the communist and Nazi occupiers of the twentieth century. As a substitute of a military-powered regime, these coders see their rival as a more insidious villain. The Austrian hub characterizes the threat not as a “distant dictatorial world,” but as the way in which current governments try and control the flow of data.
“States and their security agencies globally control access to information and use the protection of mental property as an excuse to use total censorship to manage the available resources,” reads a part of the mission statement on their website.
Crypto fans descend on Prague
Because the U.S. crypto scene is imploding and firms dealing in digital assets face growing scrutiny from regulators, much of the developer community has flocked to international tech hubs just like the Czech Republic to hunt like-minded coders with a view to stay it to the person — or to no less than keep away from the establishment.
One reason why Prague has grow to be the middle of gravity for the industry has to do with its roots within the Austrian school of economics, an idea born out of Nineteenth-century Vienna that is still quite popular within the Czech Republic today.
Carl Menger and Friedrich Hayek helped birth this particular brand of classical economic liberalism — to not be confused with the American concept of political liberalism. It holds independent individuals acting of their best economic self-interest is the optimal option to run a society and create a thriving economy, somewhat than centralized control or the heavy hand of state intervention.
ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis within the Czech Republic
Pavel Sinagl
“Adherents of this school of thought have been writing articles and books on bitcoin for the Czech audience since 2016,” Tětek told CNBC, who went on to notice a number of the natural synergies between bitcoin believers and economists schooled in Austrian economics.
“The Austrian school could be very compatible with bitcoin adoption,” he said. “A central aspect is the decision for a separation of cash and state.”
Adherents of each worlds don’t think the Federal Reserve can rescue the economy. Tětek added that bitcoin instead independent monetary instrument thrives on this environment.
It helps that Prague has a protracted track record of drawing the sector’s top talent. The Czech capital is home to the world’s first hardware wallet and the primary bitcoin mining pool. Bitcoin is accepted in Alza, one in all the biggest retail chains within the country, in addition to in a whole bunch of other smaller businesses. The town also plays host to major international conferences drawing 1000’s to Bohemia every year.
“Overall, the bitcoin community within the Czech Republic could be very strong, especially when measured per-capita,” said Tětek. “There are around 10 million Czech speakers. The most well-liked Czech bitcoin YouTuber boasts 90k subscribers, while the annual Czech-only bitcoin conference called Chaincamp attracts around 2000 visitors, even in the course of the bear market.”
ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis within the Czech Republic
Pavel Sinagl
“Czechs are natural-born tinkerers; the early bitcoin projects similar to Trezor and General Bytes emerged within the Prague hacker scene,” said Tětek, who has a background in Austrian economics and political philosophy. General Bytes is one in all the larger bitcoin and crypto ATM manufacturers, which also provides software for Bitcoin ATM operators.
This summer, ETHPrague and BTCPrague held major summits within the capital over the identical one-week window. The ethereum event organizers rented out space from Polis, while the bitcoiners descended on Prague’s jumbo-sized expo center on the outskirts of town.
BTCPrague talked a giant game on event stats — 100+ speakers across 4 stages, 100+ firms and open-source projects on the expo, and 10,000+ attendees from all across Europe and beyond. While the venue was sprawling and packed on its first day, CNBC cannot independently confirm attendance numbers.
A number of the most notable names within the bitcoin ecosystem were there, including Microstrategy’s Michael Saylor, suspected Satoshi cryptographer and cypherpunk Adam Back, and best-selling economist and writer Saifedean Ammous.
BTCPrague 2023 was held on the expo hall within the outskirts of the Czech capital
CNBC
Ancillary events complementing the twin crypto conferences took place across the town.
One was hosted within the private dining room of a steakhouse in Old Town where the merits of bitcoin — and its imminent threats — were debated until midnight. One point in contention: Whether Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler is a closeted bitcoin maximalist, given it’s the one digital asset that he has explicitly omitted from his concerted campaign to police and dismantle the ecosystem.
Meanwhile, ethereum enthusiasts descended on a contemporary houseboat in Holešovice for a beer tasting by the Czech Craft brewery Václav, where the Czech classic 12° Pils Vaclav and the buttery IPA 17° Sexy Hafanana were each on tap.
One other side event took place one morning at Trezor’s office, a modest space within the SatoshiLabs constructing situated in a distant, residential suburb two miles north-east of Polis. The session included a few of Prague’s top bitcoin founders — Matěj Žák, the CEO of Trezor; Jan Čapek, co-founder of Braiins, which proclaims to be the primary company to introduce the concept of bitcoin mining pools; Christoph Kassas of General Bytes; and outstanding Bitcoin YouTuber Jakub Vejmola. The discussion was more of a lecture-style format, with each of the leaders talking about current expansion efforts in the course of the bear market.
The Braiins team also spoke about how they’re bracing for imminent regulation within the space. The team described a protocol in development now that might make it in order that pools are usually not capable of selecting the transactions that comprise each block — that way, they’d avoid being blamed for violating any impending rules from the U.S. Treasury restricting the exchange of cryptocurrency.
“This extension to the protocol is actually managed in order that miners can select their very own work templates being approved by the pool, but then mainly, the pool as a legal entity is out of the sport, by way of not being answerable for choosing the transaction,” explained Čapek.
A go searching the room revealed an audience of a pair dozen people, stuffed with a few of today’s most influential bitcoiners, including technologist and software engineer Jameson Lopp, a cypherpunk and co-founder of bitcoin security provider Casa, in addition to the favored podcast hosts Stephan Livera and hedge fund manager-turned-bitcoiner Robert Breedlove.
Across town at Polis, Duct Tape Production placed on ETHPrague, in coordination with the Ethereum Foundation.
ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis within the Czech Republic
Pavel Sinagl
The multi-day conference drew in essentially the most influential thinkers within the space — including Buterin, one of the outstanding coders on the planet, and Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave and Lens.
Programming consisted of a combination of lectures and panels on every little thing from MiCA and self-regulation inside decentralized finance, to the nuances of layer two protocols being built on top of ethereum. These working sessions brought together technologists, lawyers, and politicians from across the continent to debate next steps for the industry.
“I used to be genuinely surprised at how helpful and friendly the participants were, how much altruism and reciprocity might be felt of their views and presentations, and the indisputable fact that they’re near the ‘construct homes, not empires’ vision,” said Ondrej Polak, executive director of the newly-founded Czech Blockchain Association, who also describes himself as a practicing technology optimist and AI advocate.
ETHPrague 2023 was held at Paralelní Polis within the Czech Republic
Pavel Sinagl
Ligocky had an identical response to ETHPrague, saying it reaffirmed his belief that “the longer term of the web is being reshaped by a vibrant global community of visionaries, developers, and entrepreneurs.”
“The sense of community and shared purpose was truly inspiring, as we collectively strive to unlock the limitless possibilities that lie ahead on this decentralized frontier,” continued Ligocky.
“ETHPrague is only the start,” he said, adding that they are working on more events across Europe for teams that share the identical vision.