The First Bitcoin Conference Had Only 50 People

Today, Bitcoin conferences attract tens of thousands of people. But the first one was surprisingly small. The first Bitcoin conference took place on August 20—21, 2011 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. At the time, Bitcoin had just reached $10 earlier that year, and the community was still tiny. Only around 50 to 75 people attended. Many of them were early pioneers, including: • Gavin Andresen • Jeff Garzik • Stefan Thomas The event was sponsored by Mt. Gox and BitPay, two early companies helping build Bitcoin infrastructure. For many attendees, it was the first time meeting in real life after years of discussions on Bitcointalk forums. They talked about: • Bitcoin development • mining • merchant adoption • the future of decentralized money What started as