The fourth edition of the event organized by Plan₿ and the city of Lugano recorded a participation record with over 4,000 attendees.
Saturday, October 25, the fourth edition of Plan ₿ Forum concluded at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Lugano, with the participation of over 4,000 people, marking a new record for the event.
Among the main speakers who took part in the event were Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, Jack Mallers, CEO of Twenty One and Strike, Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, Giacomo Zucco, president of Plan ₿ Network, Peter Todd, Bitcoin developer, and more than 100 other speakers.
The conference was organized across four stages: the main WAGMI Stage and three secondary rooms called P2P Stage, UTXO Room and Hal Finney Room. As in the previous edition, a free stage in Italian called Spazio21 was set up, dedicated to practical workshops on topics such as self-custody, nodes, mining, transactions and Lightning Network. Spazio21 also achieved a record result with over 600 participants.
Mayor Michele Foletti opened the event presenting the developments of the initiative launched three years ago, which has transformed Lugano into one of the most relevant Bitcoin hubs in Europe. Foletti stated that currently about 400 shops in the city accept payments in bitcoin, USDT and LVGA, the local stablecoin pegged to the Swiss franc. The mayor also mentioned the letter of intent between the city and Tether focused on educational and training projects for young people within the Plan ₿ project.
One of the most followed panels, “The future of implementations“, saw Luke Dashjr and Bitcoin Mechanic debate against Peter Todd and Jameson Lopp, with moderation by Stephan Livera. The debate addressed the OP_RETURN question and what constitutes legitimate use of Bitcoin’s timechain block space.
On one side, Dashjr and Bitcoin Mechanic argued that spam and data storage represent distinct issues, emphasizing how the possibility of inserting arbitrary data such as text, images, videos or messages on the timechain entails legal and moral risks for full-node operators. Dashjr highlighted that the data storage function is more problematic compared to non-monetary transactions considered “spam”.
On the other side, Todd and Lopp argued that there are no effective methods to prevent data insertion in a permissionless network. According to them, the Bitcoin protocol has always been susceptible to data insertion, subject to payment of appropriate fees.
The discussion highlighted how today there already exist different Bitcoin implementations (including Bitcoin Knots, btcd, Libre Relay and Floresta) that maintain the same consensus but adopt different relay policies, leaving users freedom of choice.
The panel “Navigating Bitcoin mining in Africa“, with Philip Walton, CTO of Gridless, Nemo Semret, CEO of QRB Labs, Davis Hui, VP of Canaan and moderated by Giw Zanganeh, VP of Energy and Mining at Tether, explored mining dynamics in the African continent.
Import logistics of equipment emerged as the most critical and unpredictable challenge. The difficulty in transporting equipment within African countries, and subsequently out for any repairs, constitutes an obstacle, aggravated by regulations that can suddenly change and block operations for months.
Despite such difficulties, mining is emerging as a catalyst for the electrification of the continent. Countries like Ethiopia and Tanzania have significant unused energy capacity with marginal costs close to zero. Selling this energy to miners allows monetizing otherwise unused resources, generating revenues that can be allocated to new investments to expand the electrical grid and accelerate electrification. The panel participants predicted that Africa will become an epicenter of global mining within about ten years.
The debate “Privacy matters: the fight for the soul of Bitcoin“, moderated by Giacomo Zucco with Max Hillebrand, Seth For Privacy, Odell and Rockstar Dev, provided an overview of technical solutions to protect Bitcoin users’ privacy.
The discussion clarified that the main problem does not lie in bitcoin itself, which remains completely fungible, but in the application of KYC (Know Your Customer) to individuals, who are recorded in databases along with the complete history of their transactions.
To keep Bitcoin predominantly no-KYC, the main methods identified were: purchasing bitcoin without KYC procedures, using a personal full-node and using the Lightning Network. Technical solutions such as Coinjoin, Coinswap and Payjoin were also mentioned, along with specific tools such as Cashu, Boltz, RoboSats and wallets like Aqua and Bull Bitcoin.
Beyond the main panels, the conference touched on numerous other topics: Bitcoin as a tool for freedom, its use in local communities, loans with bitcoin as collateral, artificial intelligence and freedom of expression.
