Recap on my Bitcoin Montréal involvement and Launching Bitcoin Querétaro
A new Bitcoin community in the center of Mexico offering monthly local meetups, with introductory content and advanced technical vulgarization.
Fleeing Canada for Mexico
Like many from my hometown Montréal, I had to flee the country during the COVID lockdowns/curfews to a freer place. I was initially hesitating between the USA and Mexico but given the USA’s high cost of immigration and living, I made my move to Mexico in late 2021 and I’m currently a temporary Mexican resident.
During those initial months of my exploration of this country, I went around a little bit to cities and towns such as CDMX, San Miguel de Allende, Playa del Carmen, Puerto Vallarta / Sayulita, Querétaro, and Malinalco (rural State of Mexico). I settled that I wanted to live in Querétaro due to its adequate safety levels, high economical growth, vivid business scene, and dry climate. I’ve been here almost a year (although I traveled a lot) and I’m very happy with my choice.
In this article, I will describe my experience of co-organizing and co-hosting Bitcoin Montreal (with my buddies Maciej Cepnik and Tristan Borges) from 2019 to 2021 and what the Bitcoin Queretaro community I’m currently building is.
My Bitcoin Montreal Golden Days
When Maciej, Tristan, and I launched Veriphi, we had already established a network in the Bitcoin Montreal community, particularly amongst the team of recently rebranded Bull Bitcoin (previously known as Bylls). We had participated in many meetups in the previous year and also worked at Catallaxy’s Blockhouse (a Bitcoin co-working space in Montréal) on our first startup, Mining X.
Veriphi was launched without a clear idea of a business model but with the decisive mission of Bitcoin Education. At the same time, Bitcoin Montreal’s leader Francis Pouliot was too busy running his business to actively run a Bitcoin community, so it was a natural fit for us to embark on the journey of organizing and hosting the Bitcoin Montreal meetups. He had been running Bitcoin Montreal since 2014 and had grown with others the community from zero to thousands of members.
We began that new challenge with a simple presentation by Maciej and me at the Montreal Bitcoin 10th year anniversary on what were then new Bitcoin technologies such as sovereignty tools, sidechains, taproot / schnorr signatures, and the Lightning Network. You can find a further description of the event in a french article by Cryptonews here.
Everyone, including Francis, was impressed by our knowledge and our public speaking and vulgarizing skills at that meetup. It was after that event that he decided to give us the mandate of managing the community and its events.
For the remaining of the year up until March 2020, we organized monthly meetups with crowds ranging from 50 to 200 attendees and a very high satisfaction rate. Those that were present will always remember those Bitcoin Montreal Golden Days.
Canadian Law forces us to go digital
On March 2020, much like the rest of the world, the Canadian and Quebec governments declared an unprecedented lockdown, forcing everyone to stay home and banning gatherings. It was the end of an era, not only for us but for the entire human race. An era we will always remember as the good old days, but life is what it is and we just have to move forward.
As the law mandated, Bitcoin Montreal had to go digital if it wanted to remain alive. We obviously weren’t going to give up the educational mission so we spent the whole year making online webinars, all of which you can find on our YouTube channel here.
In the summer of 2020 and 2021, the government rules eased, which allowed us to organize in-person meetups, at local parks. We began a new theme around our meetups: Bitcoin BBQs. They were different from the previous model in that they were less focused on education and more focused on networking and partying. We had a ton of fun.
In the second year, 2021, we organized Bitcoin Summer, a multi-day paid workshop / mini-conference event indoors (rules had eased even more). It was a tremendous success with multiple attendees getting jobs at Bitcoin startups soon after. You can find all the videos from Bitcoin Summer on our YouTube here.
I miss those days and managing the Bitcoin Montréal meetups and community but not at the cost of my freedom. I do go back every summer and will participate and probably even organize activities during those months, but I now got to move forward to new community-building challenges in my new home city, Querétaro.
Bitcoin Querétaro, my new local community
Mexico is different in so many ways compared to Canada or the USA, both in positive and negative ways. When it comes to Bitcoin communities, this country remains way behind its northern neighbors. There are a few projects going on in the main cities across the country but they remain quite small, except in CDMX where 90% of the action is. I’ve well researched the topic of Bitcoin in Mexico and it will be a future article in this newsletter.
Once I understood this, I knew it would be a huge challenge to launch a community in Querétaro. I love solving complex problems so it was inevitable for me to decide to make this a reality, once again with my friends and colleagues Maciej Cepnik and Tristan Borges Solari.
The mission of Bitcoin Querétaro is to bring high-quality Bitcoin education to both Mexican nationals and expats. We aim to create a thriving community of entrepreneurs, experts, and Bitcoin enthusiasts in our home city. This is a bilingual meetup, but Spanish comes first. The goal is to build a bridge between Mexicans interested in Bitcoin and the global Bitcoin community.
We’ve already had two meetups (1,2) and the third one is already scheduled for the 16th of February at 6 PM in the historical Queretaro Center at the Social Club Public House, a local bar. You can sign up for the meetup group to stay alert about our future events here. In both events, we’ve had Bitcoiners attend that traveled by bus or by plane across the country to assist, so everyone is welcome.
You can already find my talk in Spanish on The Full RBF Debate on our YouTube channel here. We will publish videos of most of our future presentations on that channel so expect a lot of content coming from us there, on here, and in person in Querétaro!
Thank you for reading. Until the next time. Gustavo
Recap on my Bitcoin Montréal involvement and Launching Bitcoin Querétaro
Can't wait to follow a fellow bitcoiner's journey in Mexico.