Policy Scoop with Aislinn Keely: A roundup of the policy discussion at Miami's Bitcoin 2022

An estimated 25,000 people descended on Miami, Florida earlier this month for Bitcoin 2022, the world's largest Bitcoin-focused conference. That's more than double the attendance the conference saw last year.

The annual Bitcoin conference is known for its fanfare, including some anti-government and anti-regulatory sentiment. That was still on display at Bitcoin 2022, with incidents like billionaire Ricardo Salinas including a slide titled "The Devils" depicting regulators and a Braveheart-style freedom chant from the crowd. But the tone seems to be shifting. 

In this episode of Policy Scoop, The Block's Aislinn Keely delves into that change in tone, particularly the way this year's conference put a much greater emphasis on policy. The anti-government sentiment that pervaded Bitcoin 2021 turned into a neutral and perhaps even friendly stance toward policymakers at the 2022 event. This may be because most Bitcoiners have accepted that mass adoption won't come without regulation.

Keely covered the conference on the ground in Miami, and in this week's episode, she chats with The Block Managing Editor Michael McSweeney about the key takeaways from the policy-related discussions at Bitcoin 2022. They dive into the following topics:

• The differences between Bitcoin 2021 and Bitcoin 2022
• The major policy events that have occurred in the past year to give Bitcoiners a more hopeful outlook on regulation
• Why the push for mass adoption seems to require some degree of working within the political system
• The difference in financial services regulation and mining regulation.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime
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About Cross River
Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.