I had the opportunity to visit the Christchurch bitcoin meetup and met some wonderful people from all sorts of backgrounds each with their own perspective of this crypto world.
On this crisp, cloudless evening, around 15 devoted crypto enthusiast gathered to share everything from ICO ideas and potential bitcoin mempool manipulation to fine tuning Nvidia mining cards and Austrian economic theory.
Kirk has been running these meetups for about a year now taking over from a previous organizer and is doing a great job.
The amazing thing I love about these meetups is everyone you talk to has a story. There was a lady who had heard of bitcoins and gathered enough courage to take her first step and come along which was great to see. (I remember my very first meetup in Auckland, walking into a local pub not knowing anyone. Daunting for an introverted geek like me!)
Another person had been reading Austrian economics since he was a teenager, someone else brought charts of the hash rate of bitcoin v bitcoin cash and talked about the gamification of the two coins against each other, another floated ideas of a treecoin ICO, the topics go on.
There are pockets of innovation and ideas happening in Christchurch and I’m sure it will continue. I also see further opportunities for another kind of meetup where ideas or projects are presented from the local community and abroad in a more formal space. This would draw a different set of audience out of the wood works as well. Perhaps this is a challenge that someone may take up!
If anyone is in Christchurch and keen to learn more, feel free to join the group below.
https://www.meetup.com/Christchurch-Bitcoin-Meetup/
