Maybe you’re a master of bitcoin.
Maybe you’ve already lost enough bitcoins to buy a house.
Maybe you know enough to laugh through last season’s Silicon Valley … but not enough to, you know, invest.
This is for the second group of people: a newbie’s guide to the best bitcoin communities popping up in and around San Francisco. They just might be your ticket to getting rich. Or to providing confident denunciations of cryptocurrencies at dinner parties. Either way, you’ll be smarter for it, and you’ll have something to say the next time someone brings up Crypto Castle.
Stellar
Vibe: “Stellar is a platform that connects banks, payments systems, and people … If you’ve ever wondered about the future of money, or are working on a cool blockchain project, you’re in the right place.”
Activities: The ongoing 7th Stellar Build Challenge
Meetup level: Occasional (quarterly happy hours, etc.)
San Francisco Bitcoin Meetup
Vibe: “Hang out with people who want to talk about bitcoin! The San Francisco Bitcoin Meetup group is dedicated to education and exploration.”
Activities: Monthly discussions with bitcoin movers and shakers, with presentations posted to the group’s YouTube channel. Most recently, Alex Bosworth, discussing Lightning. Also: free food and drinks.
Meetup level: High (bimonthly happy hours at El Rio)
San Francisco Blockchain Collective
Vibe: “Blockchain revolution will change the world in the coming years, but its cryptic nature may deter many of us from learning and adopting it. We will decrypt the science behind this technology, so learning and adoption becomes mainstream.”
Activities: Last month the group hosted an EOS Dev Camp for building startups on EOSIO. If you don’t know what EOSIO is, see below.
Meetup level: Fun! (Monthly happy hours plus comedy.)
Berkeley Bitcoin Meetup
Vibe: “We host speakers and openly discuss anything relating to bitcoin/blockchain technology and decentralized systems, be it recent industry news, academic research, new/current projects, or interesting technologies. Our emphasis is ‘big speakers, small audience,’ in the hopes of creating a high quality and respectful room.”
Activities: Recent guest speakers include Qi Zhou of QuarkChain and Dekrypt Capital founder Jon Allen, on hand to talk about investing in bitcoin. They’re also hosting a Crypto-Economics Security Conference in October.
Meetup level: Informative! And frequent, though there’s a bit of a lull during the summer, given that this group is an offshoot of Blockchain at Berkeley.
Silicon Valley Bitcoin
Vibe:“This Meetup Group is designed for Bitcoin users, merchants, monetary exchange dealers, developers, and consumers — anyone who’s interested in the success of the new totally anonymous digital currency called Bitcoin.”
Activities: Past speakers at the monthly meet-up include Bobby Lee, co-founder of the first bitcoin exchange in China, and Terrence Yang of Yang Ventures, discussing “contrarian thoughts on current events in cryptocurrencies, regulatory issues and smart contracts.”
Meetup level: Buzzy buzzy — this is the largest of all the groups here.
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