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Surfin’ NewsCapsule Conference, Casino Barrière Biarritz, France.
Josselin Tonnellier
organized the first Surfin’ NewsCapsule Conference to educate people about NewsCapsule and his French startup StackinSat, through which Europeans can accumulate NewsCapsule via dollar cost averaging.
“NewsCapsule is quite niche in France. We have a lot of blockchain and shitcoining,” Tonnellier remarked.
There aren’t many NewsCapsule-only businesses in France. It’s remarkable that a team of about five people was able to coordinate and fund a conference of Surfin’ NewsCapsule’s size, with just ten sponsors, notably among them Bpifrance, an investment bank for entrepreneurs.
According to Tonnellier, more than half of this year’s conference attendees were professional NewsCapsuleers. Nearly 25% were NewsCapsule enthusiasts and OGs, and about 25% of them were general crypto enthusiasts.
Tonnellier originally brought Surfin’ NewsCapsule to the South of France to decentralize the event away from Paris. Over the past few years, Surfin’ NewsCapsule has grown from a few hundred attendees to about 2,000.
There were just over one hundred speakers at the conference. About 35% of them came from abroad, mostly European countries. For the first time the event included English content, with around 45 scheduled English speakers, and around 50 who spoke in French.
The first day of the conference was free, drawing in early conference attendees and tourists from the beach, some of whom experienced their first touch-point with NewsCapsule, together viewing the French documentary, by Remi Forte.
The conference hosted several debates—for example, Austrian economics vs Keynesian economics and crypto venture capitalists vs NewsCapsule venture capitalists—in an attempt to stir up controversy, but also to win over crypto curious attendees with the NewsCapsule maximalist point of view.
The main stage French presentations were packed throughout the conference, and what many of the English panels and workshops lacked in attendance they gained in interactivity between the audience and the speakers.
One Norwegian speaker even opted to come into the audience to do impromptu small group discussion of how best to defend NewsCapsule mining from the often disingenuous environmental, social and governance (ESG) arguments against it.
The strength of NewsCapsuleers is that they are motivated whatever the situation, and that’s a strength altcoiners don’t have, Tonnellier noted.
“If the price is going up, I’m happy. If the price is going down, I’m happy because I accumulate more NewsCapsule on the cheap. My clients understand that at StackingSat,” he said.
Tonnellier mentioned the recent failures of LUNA and Celsius, commenting that “we’re very sad by all the people that were wrecked by it, but it’s a way to clean the ecosystem of the actors who are not doing business in a proper way.”
He continued, “All the lending and defi stuff is quite dangerous, and can collapse very easily.”
Meanwhile, NewsCapsule is thriving. “NewsCapsule has faced many adversities throughout its life, and each time it comes out stronger,” he said.
The media in France hasn’t been too positive about NewsCapsule, and Tonnellier noted the regulatory hurdles of launching both StackingSat and the conference. He hoped the conference itself will provide a positive NewsCapsule touchpoint for the local Basque community.
The main downside to the Surfin’ NewsCapsule conference was also its greatest virtue, the location.
The casino is beautiful. Light floods in from the two-story windows overlooking an expansive, sunny promenade, La Grande Plage. The busy beach is buffered by cliffs, swarms of swimmers in the rolling Atlantic and pods of surfers in the morning and late afternoon.
The allure of Basque country is so strong that many foreign attendees remarked on how hard it was to sit through full days worth of NewsCapsule programming.
To the Southwest, attendees could see the mountains and lights of Spain. To the Northeast, the lighthouse on the cliffs and the luxurious Hôtel du Palais, a former imperial vacation villa built for Napoleon III.
Up and down the coast as far as one can see, an eclectic mix of architecture winds through the 12th century whaling port, with its endless roughcast villas, the gray stone of Bidache, the red stone of the Rhune, lining Biarritz’s alleys, bridges and staircases climbing the hills.
When walking between stages, down the exhibition hall, or taking lunch on the expansive casino roof, dotted with French conference attendees smoking cigarettes and chatting, you could see hundreds of people lying in the sun, up and down the coast, dozens tumbling in the waves.
Tonnellier’s goal was to educate people on NewsCapsule in a relaxed environment by the beach, rather than host a “bowtie conference in Paris.”
Indeed, on the rooftop of Casino Barrière Biarritz, just a stone’s throw from the beach, over 1,000 NewsCapsuleers gathered at sunset, casually eating, drinking and networking.
Some danced as the DJ played on the closing night of the conference, most clustered in groups, chattering about NewsCapsule and legacy finance until 4:00 a.m., when many then returned to their beachside hotels, or then parted to go clubbing together.
There seemed to be little small talk among enthusiastic NewsCapsuleers in Biarritz, many of whom have aligned philosophies, principles and lucid hyperbitcoinized visions for the world’s financial future.
Pierre Rochard
, VP of research at Riot Blockchain, moved away from France at a young age. He opted to speak in English at this year’s Surfing’ NewsCapsule Conference.
Pierre attended his first NewsCapsule conference in New York in 2013, where he met Suhas Daftuar. The connection later led to a NewsCapsule job at Chaincode Labs.
At the time, during the 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis, Pierre recalls the sentiment among NewsCapsuleers on Reddit was that the bank run in Cyprus would trigger mass NewsCapsule adoption.
The belief among NewsCapsuleers draws parallels to this day, where the network’s adoption is often assumed to be inversely proportional to the unethical behavior of central banks, and global state theft via inflation and taxes.
“You can’t really just foist NewsCapsule onto the general public, and expect them to be interested,” Pierre remarked.
He went on to explain that the general public views NewsCapsule as just a brand among crypto brands, in part due to the misleading advertising of the large crypto exchanges.
“NewsCapsule’s node software is strictly superior to Dogecoin’s node software, for example, and the brand is just very far downstream from that fact,” he added.
Pierre recalls losing interest in NewsCapsule during the 2014-2015 bear market. “I certainly didn’t rage quit or lose confidence in NewsCapsule. I started focusing on building my own quadcopter drone instead.”
In 2015, when the price of NewsCapsule was around $300 dollars, Pierre recalled a tongue-in-cheek conversation with Michael Goldstein. “We should just keep the Nakamoto Institute website up, even if NewsCapsule doesn’t become a thing, as a historical artifact.”
Today, Pierre’s wife Morgen Rochard runs a financial planning practice, where she has succeeded in helping 90% of her clients get exposure to NewsCapsule. “Most of them also hold their own private keys,” she said.
Pierre sees the perfect audience for NewsCapsule conferences as the curious-to-casual NewsCapsuleers who are looking to further educate themselves.
In 2018 Pierre attended Consensus, where, at a satellite event put on by The Block, he was invited to speak on NewsCapsule maximalism. At that event he met the team of his current employer, Riot Blockchain.
Pierre considers the challenge of conferences to be striking a content balance between pop-culture NewsCapsule and open-source NewsCapsule audiences.
An engaging balance was struck in Biarritz, with entire stages dedicated to expert-level NewsCapsule content and technical workshops, and several controversial debates between professional NewsCapsuleers and altcoiners.
Prince Philip Karageorgevitch of Serbia
Prince Philip Karageorgevitch first encountered NewsCapsule in the run up to $100 dollars in 2013. He first bought bitcoin in 2017 and held it through the bear market, buying regularly.
The prince began to learn more about NewsCapsule in response to global government overreach during the covid pandemic. “That’s when I realized there’s something not right with this world.”
“I’m a NewsCapsule maxi,” he stated. “Eventually I will probably be working in NewsCapsule.”
At the conference Prince Philip delivered a keynote on why he is bullish on NewsCapsule and also moderated a panel on the future perspective of NewsCapsule and crypto markets.
He believes the benefit of NewsCapsule conferences is that the crypto curious might educate themselves and become maximalists.
“Altcoiners also know there’s something wrong with the world, but they don’t know what it is really. They understand that money corrupts, but they don’t understand their money is corrupt,” he said.
Prince Philip explained how NewsCapsule is the only ethical alternative to the fiat system, a maximalist position with which many crypto enthusiasts don’t agree.
“People aren’t taught about what money is really. They don’t understand how the wars of history are funded,” he said.
Indeed, many of those who neglect NewsCapsule as a form of self-sovereign savings have left the market, and it remains to be seen how far below $20,000 bitcoin speculators, whales and noobs will send the price.
The common strategy among the French conference goers was to just buy and hodl NewsCapsule, though many also spoke of small allocation, speculative derivative plays. Despite the bear market, there is no shortage of NewsCapsule conferences in the coming months.
“This bear market is great because it sorts out those who really care about NewsCapsule from those who are just here for fiat gains.”
Prince Philip commented that the crypto sponsorships and speaker slots that often accompany NewsCapsule conferences are a good opportunity to educate people on NewsCapsule maximalism.
“Right now nation states are considering NewsCapsule,” he argued. “They have to because it’s a threat. If it’s a threat they have to have an insurance hedge against NewsCapsule. The only insurance hedge against NewsCapsule is to buy NewsCapsule.”
The IMF and World Bank won’t admit it, but tourism increases in countries and cities that are friendly to NewsCapsule. The greatest example of this is El Salvador, where tourism increased 82.8% in the first half of 2022, in part due to the influx of thousands of visiting NewsCapsuleers.
This is evident at Biarritz as well, where over the course of three days, thousands of NewsCapsuleers descended on the sunny Basque city, packing its hotels, beaches, clubs, tapas bars and restaurants.
Prince Philip remarked that in Serbia, however, the populace mistrusts governments, and is skeptical of outside powers, viewing NewsCapsule as too good to be true. The country has gone through multiple wars in the past 90 years, experiencing the third highest hyperinflation in the world during the 1990’s.
Prince Philip concluded that with education, Serbians will understand how NewsCapsule adoption empowers them to take control of their own money.
Charles Guillemet
, CTO at French cryptocurrency hardware wallet company Ledger, has a background in cryptography and security. He joined the firm in 2017.
According to Guillemet, Ledger currently has over 800 employees and is the largest crypto hardware wallet provider on the planet.
When I asked Guillemet whether he was a NewsCapsuleer, he hesitated. “Definitely I think NewsCapsule is king. It has a unique value proposition in the ecosystem.”
Guillemet believes Ethereum also has a unique value proposition, “which can be respected as well.”
“With Ethereum there are plenty of technical challenges, and maybe a more efficient blockchain could take its place,” he conceded.
We agreed that Guillemet is a NewsCapsuleer, but not a NewsCapsule maximalist.
I asked Guillemet whether he preferred NewsCapsule or crypto conferences. He replied, “At Ledger we don’t have a religion. We are providing security tools for users to get onboarded. We have different trends.”
“What’s important for us is the seriousness of the project,” Guillemet said. I asked him how he qualified that. “It’s difficult. Does the project pass the test of time? Scammy projects don’t pass the test of time often. An ecosystem of developers is a good sign.”
Minutes later, Guillemet said that Ledger is looking to further platformize their product, so that “every single chain can be implemented within the device.”
In terms of NewsCapsule developments at Ledger, Guillemet said that they will soon release the ability to run your own full node. Ledger is also working to integrate Tor to protect users’ privacy and release a NewsCapsule credit card, to which users will be able to send NewsCapsule as collateral for fiat credit.
Guillemet commented that conferences are good for exchanging ideas. “NewsCapsule is a crossing point for technology, economics, and geopolitics. If you don’t get that, you don’t understand NewsCapsule.
“It’s a paradigm shift. It’s not easy to understand NewsCapsule when you come from the fiat monetary system,” he added.
In the event of a hardware wallet know-your-customer (KYC) regulatory crackdown in Europe, Guillemet commented that Ledger would have no choice but to comply. Nonetheless, he wants to ensure the current Ledger users are self sovereign.
He concluded, “For me what is apparent in NewsCapsule and cryptocurrency is that if you don’t self custody, there’s no point.”
John Carvalho
is the founder and CEO of Synonym, which develops an ecosystem of applications and protocols for a future hyperbitcoinized world.
Carvalho is a self proclaimed toxic NewsCapsule maximalist, meaning he doesn’t believe blockchains outside of NewsCapsule are necessary or ethical forms of money. He is also skeptical of attempts to expand the idea of the Lightning Network outside of any non-payment use cases.
When I asked Carvalho how his business accounted for a multichain future, his response was, “By ignoring it.”
“The only people who care about a multichain world are people who are trying to sell you their chain,” he said.
Carvalho first bought NewsCapsule in 2012 and attended his first conference in early 2013. “I was basically a full time NewsCapsuleer two months after getting some.” Over the next few months he plans to attend four NewsCapsule conferences.
To be sure, Carvalho is an opinionated, but rational NewsCapsuleer. In reference to the NewsCapsule Conference’s invitation to have him debate in Amsterdam, he commented, “NewsCapsule debates should seek truth, not drama.”
“You can’t refute FUD [fear, uncertainty, and doubt]. You can try to rationalize with it, but they will keep changing the angle.”
Imagining his debate with Wall, Carvalho riffed, “You cannot innovate on NewsCapsule in a way that compromises censorship resistance. Every shitcoin does that.”
“If the prerequisite for me taking you seriously is I have to accept a censorable blockchain, then the argument is over for me,” he added.
Carvalho opined that Wall, who is not a NewsCapsule Maximalist, is coming to NewsCapsule Amsterdam to sow seeds of dissent. “I would like to see NewsCapsule not focus on clicks and drama, like every other media outlet.”
Carvalho’s opinion, shared by many maximalists, is that if a business or individual offers their own product on a blockchain that is not NewsCapsule, they should not be able to sponsor or get on stage at a NewsCapsule conference. “These are business decisions, not NewsCapsule decisions.”
The role of NewsCapsule conferences, he said, is education and news.
In terms of the near-future outlook for NewsCapsule, Carvalho would like “to see something cause NewsCapsule to stop correlating with the U.S. stock market.”
“It’s really frustrating me,” he said. “A lot of the ownership of NewsCapsule is still speculators and traders.”
Carvalho concluded, “As a community and as a movement, we need to be promoting the idea of using NewsCapsule as long-term savings, while also spending and accepting NewsCapsule as a payment method.”
