It ’s one of the biggest events in the crypto industry: Consensus 2023.
Some of the most impactful innovations and projects in the cryptocurrency space have been featured at the watershed conference over the past few years. Consensus has also served as a key event for developers, creators, and more to determine what protocols are emerging that can drive momentum for their ecosystems, and where blockchain technologies are headed next.
The most notable blockchain platforms – such as Ethereum and Solana – will be represented by speakers and projects looking to enable additional functionalities and drive adoption of their respective blockchains.
And you can bet that the Bitcoin network will also be well-represented.
The Bitcoin community is in the middle of a Renaissance thanks to a number of developments that have expanded and facilitated Bitcoin's capabilities. The most notable Bitcoin protocol of them all is Ordinals, with everyone from Bitcoin developers to Bitcoin miners touting all the current and theoretical capabilities that can be achieved with on-chain inscriptions. And with inscriptions surpassing 1 million just a few weeks ago, every Bitcoin user will be curious to know how the protocol will influence the future development of everything from wallets to exchanges.
In short, it has become clear that Bitcoin is more than a token to be used as a digital currency, and Trust Machines will be at Consensus to ensure that every attendee can grasp the true potential of Bitcoin.
Learn About Bitcoin Layers
It's no secret to builders that Bitcoin, by design, faces a scalability issue. But in the last few years, scaling solutions have emerged that have helped increase the programming abilities of Bitcoin, particularly Bitcoin layers.
Trust Machines CEO Muneeb Ali will take the stage at Consensus on April 28 to outline how Bitcoin layers are cracking the code to a longstanding problem for the Bitcoin community. "Building on Top of Bitcoin (for Real)" covers how layers like Stacks, Lightning Network, Liquid Network, and other layer-based solutions have enabled everything from smart contracts on Bitcoin to DeFi projects on the blockchain network.
Bitcoin layers are among the scaling solutions that hold the key to unlocking the $500 billion in market cap of Bitcoin. Despite being the biggest and most popular blockchain, Bitcoin is still widely seen as solely a store of value and as a result, much of that $500 billion market cap has remained passive.
Bitcoin, however, is programmable, and layers have been key to showing people the full potential of the Bitcoin blockchain and the network's capabilities.
What Can Be Built on the Bitcoin Blockchain?
Much of that conversation about Bitcoin layers will actually be introduced on a panel on April 27 that explores building communities and ecosystems based on decentralization in a largely centralized world.
There, the Trust Machines CEO will explore what makes the Bitcoin blockchain unique -- including its Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism -- and how those factors have contributed to a builder community dedicated to building trustless technologies that can compete with the centralized systems people interact with on an everyday visit.
In many ways, the conversation couldn't be more timely, especially after a year where centralized systems have left people wanting more transparency and confirmation of the control that they have over their funds (digital assets or fiat).
And as an extension of that conversation, a separate panel that involves Trust Machines advisor Dan Held will cover how the Bitcoin blockchain's community has looked beyond even the financial and trading world. "What is Bitcoin For? Only Money, or JPEGs and More?" focuses primarily on the Ordinals protocol and how the digital artifacts generated by Ordinal inscriptions have not only revived excitement around Bitcoin NFTs, but also about how protocols like Ordinals can lead to entirely new use cases for BTC.
As our 'Not Your Ordinary NFTs: An Exploration of Bitcoin Ordinals' series has illustrated, while the Ordinals protocol has been a boon for the Bitcoin ecosystem overall, there are still many unanswered questions about the long-term impact of inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain. For example, while proponents of Ordinals have argued that it will, ultimately, help the mining economy, opponents of Ordinals have expressed concern over the block space needed for Ordinals inscriptions.
Held and fellow panelists will address many of the outstanding questions about Ordinals while also providing clarity on where the rest of the Bitcoin network could be headed.
Promoting the Bitcoin Thesis: How to Improve the Messaging Around the Wider Crypto Space
But of course, many of these discussions will be happening during an anxious time for the wider crypto landscape, particularly in the U.S.
Much of the world has become skeptical of crypto as some of the biggest institutions in the space have rocked the market -- and users' trust -- in the past year. Unfortunately, that has also left many people wary of blockchain technology as headline after headline rolls in.
Trust Machines communications advisor Aubrey Strobel will lead a session on April 26 to determine how crypto can make a comeback in the public image, and how the industry can effectively address the editorial scrutiny that seems to dominate mainstream conversations about crypto. The session, titled "How Does Crypto Improve Its Image?", will also give companies guidance about how to market themselves and their technologies in the current landscape.
Beyond Payments and Transactions: the Growing Use Cases for Bitcoin
Ultimately, the Trust Machines team will be highlighting one very important point: Bitcoin is programmable.
As the developments of the last few months have shown, Bitcoin can execute a wide variety of use cases. These applications can take advantage of the Bitcoin blockchain's high level of security and decentralization thanks to the computational power brought by scaling solutions like Bitcoin layers.
It is possible to scale Bitcoin without compromising the foundations of the Bitcoin blockchain. In fact, more and more builders are discovering the advantages that come with building their decentralized applications on Bitcoin.
However, there is still much to be done for Bitcoin to tap into its $500 billion market value. That's why this week, the Trust Machines team will be educating attendees about the Bitcoin blockchain and the impact of building on Bitcoin.
