Local Bitcoiners

Shannon of Columbus Bitcoin joins Rev and Reed to trace how a casual Twitter happy hour grew into a six-year-old meetup with roughly eighty regulars, quarterly "mini conference" events, and a River partnership. The conversation digs into recording speaker talks for YouTube and X and the tricky balance between promoting a meetup with good media while respecting attendee privacy, which Rev frames as...

Reed and Rev sit down with Steve, Scott, and Tali of the Louisville Bitcoin Network to wrestle with a question every organizer eventually hits: is your meetup for spreading Bitcoin to newcomers, or for building deep relationships among the Bitcoiners you already have? The conversation moves through the technical-versus-social tension of a bit devs format, the struggle to draw in women and non-tech...

In this episode, Clay, organizer of Cincinnati Bitcoin and a first-time podcast guest, traces his path from bingeing Austrian economics in 2015 to buying his first Bitcoin in 2020 and not discovering meetups until 2023. Clay is a self-described "lonely Bitcoiner" who organically stepped up to organize. He walks through the group's twice-monthly cadence (content Wednesdays, social Thursdays), its s...

Bit ish of Cleveland Bitcoin joins Rev and Reed to trace how a near-dead meetup became a thriving, multi-chapter community with a "reseller" circular economy - splitting bulk orders from Bitcoiner vendors across the country so sats keep flowing locally. The conversation opens up into parallel systems and the permaculture principle of integrating rather than segregating: linking meetups, Nostr, V4V...

Btcwrestle hosts the Columbia, South Carolina Bitcoin meetup and joins Rev and Reed to talk through his upcoming privacy workshop and his "take one thing away at a time" philosophy for getting Bitcoiners more private. The conversation digs into no-KYC sats, breaking transaction links with Whirlpool, UTXO management, running your own node, and why he steers clear of KYC exchanges entirely. They als...

SourceNode joins Rev and Reed from Greenville, South Carolina to talk about hosting his meetup at Steak and Shake and the budding regional network forming across South Carolina, Charlotte, Asheville, and Atlanta. The conversation winds through Captain Sid's Thailand Ride of Passage motorcycle trips, Bitcoin as a psychoactive software with parallels to psychedelics, and nonviolent communication as...

Rev and Reed go guestless for a deep-dive into the mechanics of Bitcoin meetup culture, tackling circular economies (and the unsolved problem of creating payment splits on physical goods), "proof of reputation" as the social capital that makes local communities trustworthy, and a frank breakdown of OPSEC and wrench-attack risk that argues the upside of showing up vastly outweighs the low-probabili...

Jhonny Delgado joins Reed and Rev to trace his path from lonely Bitcoiner in New York to organizer of Bitcoin Charlotte, Orange Pill Peru, and Motiv Peru - a journey that started with a chance conversation in a mushroom costume at a Burning Man-style party. ⁨Jhonny breaks down how Charlotte's Bitcoin-only culture (rooted in a meetup running since 2013) gave him the template to seed scenes elsewher...

Eric from Portland, Oregon joins Rev and Reed to talk about running six monthly Bitcoin meetups across the city and building Bitcoin Is For Everyone, the largest Bitcoin conference on the West Coast, from a nonprofit angle in one of the most crypto-skeptical regions in the country. He shares how the 501c3 structure creates cognitive disconnect for skeptics, why proof-of-work before sponsorships ma...

Rev and Reed welcome Shaun from the Niagara Bitcoin Meetup (Ontario, Canada) for a wide-ranging conversation on building Bitcoin culture across the border, from his first underground, mask-defying meetup at a Tahini's during pandemic lockdowns to nearly four years of monthly gatherings in Niagara Falls. Shaun shares his journey running a community-rooted meetup, his work teaching Bitcoin to at-ris...

Reed and Rev are joined by Spencer of KC Bitcoiners and the Bowl After Bowl podcast to dig into value-for-value as a sustainable foundation for both Bitcoin meetups and the podcasts that orbit them. Spencer makes the case that consistency must be balanced with variety, that gamification and small-but-frequent participation matter more than chasing big-name adoption, and that cultural capital is wh...

Reed and Rev sit down with Liz and Wesley of Bitcoin Bay to talk about building a circular economy across the Tampa / St. Pete area, turning a local meetup into a full-blown 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and why designing events around locals, nomads, and non-Bitcoiner spouses can transform the gravity of a local scene. Liz shares how throwing creative events like Hodlween and Bitcoin Rocks pulls in people...

Reed and Rev share meetup updates including Western Mass Bitcoin's successful first night at their new venue and the birth of a brand new meetup in Middletown, Connecticut before diving deep into Nostr as critical infrastructure for local Bitcoin communities. They make the case that posting meetup events on Nostr is a simple action that broadcasts to every Nostr-compatible event app simultaneously...

Episode 006 brings together Reed, Rev, Fundamentals from the Philly Suburbs Meetup, and Andrew from Bitcoin Park in Nashville for a recap of the annual Grassroots Bitcoin event. The crew digs into the nitty-gritty of running local meetups; the perennial challenge of finding the right venue, strategies for attracting newcomers, gathering attendee feedback, and handling shitcoiner attendees. Andrew...

Reed and Rev chat with Auggie from the Kansas City, MO Bitcoin Meetup to dig into what a thriving circular economy looks like in practice; from Auggie's farm goods making their way to meetup tables, to collaborative sourcing of feed, raw milk, honey, and more. The conversation expands into cross-pollinating meetup cultures and scaling peer-to-peer trade beyond the local level. Meetups grow around...

Rev and Reed share stories from their recent Bitcoin meetups and dig into how AI is rapidly becoming part of the Bitcoin culture conversation — from vibe coding to the tools bitcoiners are using to build and connect. The episode explores the "meshtadel" concept, a decentralized mesh of local Bitcoin meetups that together form a resilient, sovereign network no single point of failure can take down....

In this episode, Reed and Rev sit down with Cory (a.k.a Boomer), the organizer of the Ottawa Bitcoin meetup: Capital Bitcoiners. The conversation covers the state of local meetup culture during a bear market, including encouraging stories of recent surges in turnout and enthusiasm at their respective meetups. Cory also gives a behind-the-scenes look at how he structures Ottawa's two monthly events...

Reed and Rev Hodl interview GC and James from the Jersey City Bitcoin Meetup, exploring how the group evolved from casual bar gatherings to structured Socratic seminars. In our in-depth conversation, we delved into meetup security, OPSEC best practices, strategies for defending against scammers, and why meetups represent the ultimate web of trust - especially as we head into a future where trust w...

In this pilot episode of Local Bitcoiners, co-hosts Reed and Rev Hodl introduce the podcast which is dedicated to exploring Bitcoin meetups worldwide. We dive into practical tips for starting and sustaining a meetup, from choosing locations and maintaining consistency to building community through group chats and regional networking and share personal stories from their own groups in Western Mass...