are we talking about chinese or australian capital controls?

i dont know how much investment flows from aus to china, but certainly there is lots going the other way. our pride and joy is the housing market in this country. (tldr, its a ponzi)

but we take on heaps of chinese money into our property markets, further inflating the prices and making it impossible for the next generation to own a home.

personally, i do my best to avoid all ponzi's, so this isn't a game i wish to play. but for the average/normie australian, they are sold that housing the golden ticket to wealth. i worry for them they are going to get destroyed.

bitcoin fixes this.

on a personal level, starting a family!

on a bitcoin level, tick tock, next block. over time my outlook and time preference just continues to lower. I rarely think about bitcoin in yearly terms anymore (see question about not checking price of bitcoin).

of course, im excited to see further advancements on both a public and technical level. I would love to see some better political discourse around Bitcoin here in Australia. I'm doing whatever I can to try help make that happen. We'll have a special announcement in two days time at Bitcoin Alive regarding this ;)

from a security perspective, I've been doing that stuff since 2016, I've watched much evolve over that time. From being the first person to help people in Australia with hww's to now having helped the most, its been interesting to watch custody/self custody change over that time.

I worry for the bitcoiners who have not thought deeply about this. What happens if you walk outside and get hit by a bus? will your bitcoin move to where you want it to go? or will it end up in the grave with you?

okay, now this is a good question!!

Not to make any claims to be famous by any means, im certainly not, and prefer it that way. But I have personally gathered some slight attention for something I did a few years ago.

I set a task to NOT check the price of Bitcoin for 1 year. Which I did back in 2022. I've actually continued to live by this mantra, and its now been over 3 years since ive checked the price of Bitcoin (in fiat terms).

I believe that fiat is simply a distraction. If you have your conviction, and you understand bitcoin, then it should be clear that fiat plays no role in that future. So if thats the future you wish to see eventuate, then you need to start living like it. So for me, not checking the price of bitcoin is slowly rewiring my brain to live on a btc standard.

The only other person I've seen remotely talk about this stuff is Jeff Booth.

1 btc = 1 btc

Similar challenges faced in most western countries. Our economy (for as broken as it is), 'works'. People have access to financial services. Our payment systems (mostly) work. Our dollar is very broken, but we're in denial. So there is limited incentive to adopt something like Bitcoin, becuase those in power are so naive to think that things are fixable.

Geographically, we are quite isolated too, so that probably doesn't help in terms of staying connected to the other parts of the world.

ooo that's a good question. In relation to Bitcoin? or just more generally speaking?

Australia, for all the dumb things we have done to embarrass ourselves, is definitely one of the most beautiful countries to visit and live in. Hopefully Bitcoin can eventually fix all the stupidity.

Nearly every capital city has it's only bitcoin group and meetup. Some states also have multiple regional meetups, cause we're so damn big and spread apart.

Bitcoin Brisbane runs the show in the state of QLD. In terms of Cairns, im not personally familiar with a local bitcoin meetup there, but there might be!

One thing Cairns definitely has going for it is that it hosts the QLD leg of the Bitcoin Bush Bash. (https://bitcoinbushbash.info/)

The Bush Bash is a right of passage for an Aussie Bitcoiner. Weekend get together in some regional/country town.

There are some coastal meetups around Australia too. It's where 99% of the population live. There is the Surf Coast meetup, which is in Victoria. (https://www.meetup.com/surfcoastbitcoin/)

Hope to see you down under again one year!

yes, BA is a single day conference, although it is part of 'Bitcoin Week' which has a few other events and fun packed in and around the conference.

We get people from NZ and the occasional international guest who is visiting Australia. Its a blessing and a curse just how far away we are to the rest of the world.

Australia is on most peoples bucket list of places to travel to, and for bitcoiners considering it, the conference just adds another reason to make the long haul flight!

that whilst we are a small population country, tucked away down the bottom of earth, we have some extremely bright minds and heavy hitters.

we are over achievers in that regard.

for example (not bitcoin related, but proves the point), for a country of 27 million people, we are often in the top few countries in terms of performance at the olympics. we really shouldn't do that well, but we do!

Plenty of learnings, its been quite the journey over the last couple of years.

further gov overreach. further erosion of our freedoms. introduction of more surveillance, including things like CBDCs.

new leadership that 'gets it'. more sensible and less woke agenda policies that bring back things like Australian manufacturing (something I previously did). Better monestisation and capture of our abundant natural resources. (we are one of the world largest holders of uranium). We really ought to be one of the richest countries in the world with the cheapest power, but sadly, the opposite is true.

we sure set the standard on a lot of that garbage. I previously worked in digital privacy, so I was at the forefront of a lot of this government overreach.

most of the time, its just a lot of bark and no bite. but yeah, our government is not the sharpest tool in the shed, sadly. that is by far the worst thing about this country. everything else is typically really great.