First-ever Freedom Festival held in the Bitcoin Jungle demonstrates bottom-up Lightning adoption.

From January 18th to 20th, over 200 Bitcoin miners descended on Uvita, a popular beach destination in Costa Rica. The Bitcoin Freedom Festival was conceived as a spiritual gathering for those who celebrate freedom of money, nature, and sovereignty. What many Bitcoin miners are still discovering about this beautiful place along the South Pacific coast is that towns 18km to the north Uvita and Dominical are an area known as the Bitcoin Jungle.

A unique Bitcoin festival

Bitcoin Freedom Festival was held at The Awake Center in Uvita. When you arrive at the aptly named Awake Center for the festival, you quickly realize that this will not be like any other conference you have experienced. (Note: I was reminded of attending the first Slow Money Gathering in Boulder, Colorado in 2013, where they closed the conference using a Quaker-style silent meditation practice. Quakers gathered in silence We wait expectantly to enter the presence of God, and in order to be guided by the still, small voice of God speaking to us from within, while in silence we invite anyone to give a brief voice message (voice ministry) inspired by this sacred encounter. You can feel the desire.)

There were three external covered pavilions with loudspeakers, the most notable being a circular structure (Shala) used as a venue for ecstatic dancing on Sundays. The Shala is more reminiscent of a Buddhist temple than a meeting place. At the center of the grounds was a cafeteria (The Cora) that provided nourishment to visitors, and at the entrance was a small sign in very small letters that only those in attendance could read: “Be, Don’t Be.” The head chef was gracious and very proud of his role in providing people with all organic and vegan meals. She seemed delighted when she said, “You and your team are the primary health care workers on the festival site,” for those who think quality food is medicine. If this was the only food on offer outside of the Bitcoin Collector’s Gathering, it would be a shame – there were also generous portions of beef served by outside vendors in other parts of the grounds for carnivores. The festival also located itself on the AWAKE grounds rather than inside the festival boundaries, where merchants and sellers who accept Bitcoin could have booths and sell to festival attendees and the general public.

To get an idea of ​​how unique this event is, consider this: When was the last time you attended a Bitcoin meetup where shoes were taken off at meeting venues like Cora and Shala and many of the event organizers were barefoot at all three? me? Oh, the river adjacent to the accommodation? If your goal is to get in touch with nature and become a part of it, this was a no-brainer. If your goal is an air-conditioned corporate event, this is definitely not for you.

An incomparable country meets incomparable money

In understanding the event, it is helpful to have some understanding of Costa Rica’s cultural history. For example, Costa Rica was way ahead of its time by including “pax natura” in its 2002 constitution. Pax natura means peace with nature. I have never seen another country with a greater concern and love for nature, a culture that avoids waste, produces most of its needs locally (including electricity), and has no standing army. This is rare because Costa Rica has always remained a neutral country and has never participated in any fighting between the nations or tribes of Central America. And of course, “Pura Vida” is the perfect greeting you will often hear when you visit. The phrase itself has a variety of meanings.

Why did the fine folks at Bitcoin Jungle sponsor this festival? They wanted to show the local communities (Uvita and Dominical) that many Bitcoin miners would be attracted to this area. Until the last day of the festival, one of the organizers continued to hear feedback from a local shop owner: “You were right.” We met with one of her vendors at her local Bahia Farmers Market on the Wednesday after the conference, and she told us that her own business had increased by 80% thanks to the conference. Since she joined Bitcoin two years ago, she has done so well that her trader in the booth next to her started asking her how he could get her Bitcoin. (Wallet Tip: The Phoenix Wallet worked as well as the Wallet of Satoshi and Strike, as well as being able to use the Bitcoin Jungle app. The Muun Wallet also works, but in a high fee environment you can only use it on purchases over $100. Pay for accommodation with the Muun Wallet But there were surprisingly many places that accepted Bitcoin. During my two-week trip, almost every place I went to accepted Bitcoin using the Bitcoin Jungle app. This is the advantage of the Bitcoin Jungle app: users can receive Bitcoin You can use Sinpe, the Costa Rican payment system widely used in Costa Rica.

Connect with yourself so you can connect with others

It is difficult to express in words the tranquility of the scene. Nonetheless, the real heart of this place is the river that defines its southern border. Because the conference was held during the dry season, the river had plenty of exposed rocks for ambitious souls to run across to the sea a few kilometers away. Because the entire venue was outdoors and not air-conditioned, festival-goers had lots of conversation, cool off in the river, and formed friendships. January is the dry season in Costa Rica, so it is hot and the rivers are a great place to cool off and connect. Awake owners said they had plans in place for cold conditions but weren’t ready in time for the festival.

If you live or work in winter or cloudy, cold weather, this entire area will warm your body and soul. When you slow down, you will literally feel your stress disappearing. In this day and age of too many screens, too many distractions and too much craziness, this place and the festival are just what the doctor ordered. There were meditation sessions, breathing exercises, and a lot of mindfulness programs that focused on the most important connection in this author’s opinion: the connection with self. full stop. If we do not enjoy a strong connection to self, it is unlikely that we will enjoy connection to others.

Many Bitcoin miners have made the pilgrimage to El Salvador since Bitcoin became a legal currency in September 2021. Give a great gift and check out El Salvador’s Central American neighbors. You will discover that the Bitcoin Jungle is a deeply spiritual region inhabited by countries and people in close contact with nature. Due to the hard work of the Bitcoin Jungle team, many local merchants have embraced bottom-up Lightning adoption. It seems fitting that such a deeply spiritual place would also adopt a deeply spiritual form of money. Pura Vida.

This is a guest post by Mark Maraia. The opinions expressed are solely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.