In this informal Starfish Cast episode, host Luke the Sudofin chats with ConsenSys Network representatives Niko Laamanen, Virginia, and author Knut Svahnholm about the upcoming BTC Prague conference. The conversation introduces the newly‑tried ConsenSys Hub – a dedicated booth next to the bar designed to turn hallway traffic into ongoing, organized discussions among authors, readers, and creators. They outline a packed schedule of author signing sessions featuring Knut, Daniel Prince, Jorni Appleberg, Alex Svetzky, Rune Asgard, Jiraj Betnar, and others, plus a special appearance by Hodlon with his Citadel 21 magazine. A major highlight is the launch of Yoni (Joni) ‘s book Abundance Through Scarcity, described as a unique blend of Bitcoin‑related ideas, psychedelics, and Burning Man culture. The team also promises live or recorded Freedom Footprint episodes, behind‑the‑scenes coverage, and live‑tweeting from the event. Practical details are shared: a discount code (Consensus15) for last‑minute tickets, ConsenSys Network starfish shirts, and the booth’s location next to the exhibition side‑stage. Personal anecdotes (Knut’s Pantera concert, the team’s enthusiasm) underscore the community‑first, promotional tone of the episode.
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TranscriptAuto-generated · 16 min
Okay. Welcome to this special episode of, I guess we're probably calling this a Starfish Cast, but we'll see. But we are here with Niko, our shadowy super publisher leader extraordinaire, Knut Svahnholm, who needs no introduction. I'm Luke the Sudofin, and we've got Virginia with us, and we're here to talk about everything that's going on with BTC Prague, everything ConsenSys is doing. So, hey, welcome. And yeah, let's, let's talk about all the exciting things we have going on.
Hi, Luke. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for organizing. Really psyched about the whole event.
Yeah, totally. And for anyone who doesn't, hasn't seen Virginia yet as well, she's a well-kept secret so far, but is really helping out with our organization, especially for this conference. So I think Virginia will have a lot to talk about as far as the organization goes, but Niko, would you like to say anything about Yeah. How excited you are about Prague?
Yeah, sure. Like, uh, I'm gonna level with you guys. Like, I'm not, uh, as social animal as everybody might, might think, but in terms of like our mission at ConsenSys to, to spread the, the knowledge and also to serve our authors and, and serve the visitors of those conferences, we have come up with something that I like to call the ConsenSys Hub, which is what we are going to trial for the first time. Properly. Like we've been to conferences, sure, but this time it's a little bit more organized. Thank you a lot to Virginia organizing all those signing sessions. So we're going to have quite a few authors, Knut included, Jonny and Alex Svetski amongst others, joining in and coming between their talks to hang out at our hub, which is, by the way, incidentally next to the bar. It's going to be nice and next to the side stage of the exhibition area. So I hope what we are going to see, what usually in the conference is the best part, is these hallway conversations with cool people. So what I want to accomplish with Consensus Hub is a perpetual hallway discussion around our booth, and that's what you, what I hope to see. And if you come to our booth and help us realize that, then I think we are all going to see that. So just a bunch of cool people hanging out together, authors, readers, content creators. We're probably going to have a special episode of Freedom Footprint with Luke and Knut, maybe some other special stuff. But yeah, most of, first and foremost, I'm interested, excited to meet all the authors, provide the space for them to sign their books, sell their books, and of course talk about the books with all of you who decide to come.
Yeah, I think the, I've only been to one conference myself before, as you can probably tell, I'm a little newer in the space than some of the others on the call. But the conferences are just a great time to hang out and to network. And this ConsenSys Hub is really something exciting. Virginia, maybe you can walk us through who's all going to be there and the signing sessions.
Yeah, absolutely. As you said, wide appearance. You'll get to, you get to see who I am maybe later on, but for now, let's just take my word on whatever's going to happen in Prague and maybe See me there. So let's get into it. Our booth is gonna be filled with people. I already know it because for the entirety of the 3 days we have amazing signing sessions going on. Knut Svanholm, Daniel Prince, Jorni Appleberg, uh, Alex Svetzky, Rune Asgard, and Jiraj Betnar. I think I got them all. They're gonna be there. You are gonna get a chance to meet them. Buy their books, get them signed, understand who they are, and meet us at Consensus. Just get a feel for what we do. It's gonna be a fantastic time for networking. And if you go from the bar to our booth, that's gonna be a fantastic way to spend your time, I think.
I think so. And then it's worth to mention that we also have Hodlon joining in with his Citadel 21 magazines. So you'll be able to pick up some copies for your collection and meet Hodlon, and that's gonna be cool. And to top it off, we are actually right next to Saifedean's booth. He's going to, of course, have his own booth, but we're going to be neighbors. So I think it's going to be this kind of like really nice bazaar feeling kind of thing where people just hang out and do stuff, cool stuff together.
Basically, we're going to be your go-to place for anything that has to do with reading. You want to find books, come to us, come see us at BTC Prague. It's gonna be a great time. And before I forget, we still have a few tricks up our sleeves. So there are other authors that are gonna show up. Hint, hint. Just keep an eye out on our Twitter page because you'll get to know soon who, who the authors are, and we're gonna have great books for you.
Perfect. And maybe we can hear from one of those authors now, Knut. What does BTC Prague mean to you? I know you, you have a lot of fun at these conferences. I know that from personal experience. So yeah, how, how are you looking forward to BTC Prague?
Yeah, thank you, Luke. This, this conference is sort of, sort of tops it all off here for me this spring. I've been to a whole bunch of conferences. I think I've been to at least 5 conferences and a couple of meetups this spring. But for me, this is the big one. The ConsenSys booth is a big part of that, and also the Freedom Footprint stuff where probably we can land an interview or 2 with some interesting people and maybe do a live thing. And also I have my big keynote speech on the main stage at a good time slot and all sorts of stuff. So I'm very excited for this one. This, and I love Prague, so I decided I'm staying there for Like 8 days or something, and we're going to a concert after, after the thing. Like, look, we, we've got our tickets for the Pantera show after. So like, I haven't seen Pantera since 1996 when I got a guitar pick from, um, a plectrum from, uh, Dimebag Darrell. So, so looking forward to that also. So, uh, all of this is going to be great. Uh, Prague is one of my absolute favorite cities in all of Europe. So I think this one is going to be the bomb, basically. And Joni's book, like, that's a big one for me too. Joni hasn't done a lot of conferences yet. Maybe you know him from the videos we make together. He's the excellent animator that I have made a couple of videos with. I think it's 8 different videos at this point, and he's also been writing stuff for a long time and he's a, he's an OG in my eyes. And finally he's making his first big conference appearance and that's a big one. So looking forward to all of this and to hanging out with all of the other, the other people in the Bitcoin Authors Guild. It's going to be great.
Yeah, that Pantera show, that's, that's my wife's doing actually. It's, it's her favorite favorite band ever. And yeah, first time getting a chance to see them. And yeah, maybe attaching it to the conference is just a bonus basically, and gives us an excuse to stay a couple of extra days basically.
So if I can give her a little behind the scenes on Knut's excitement, when I started talking to the different authors and basically starting to put down the schedule, he was the first one to reply to me, yes, let's do it. Like, put me whenever you want, I'll be there. I just want to hang out at the booth. I was like, thank Thank you. That's the excitement that we're looking for.
Hell yeah. Can't wait to do this. I'm, I'm so excited for all of this. And then in fact, I'm, I feel very, for lack of a better word, privileged to, uh, to be a part of, of this community and doing all of this fun stuff.
Oh, it's the least we can do. Like you, you've done so much for us. And, uh, do, um, worth to mention that Knut's books are the, by, by far the, the biggest rep— representation of our library in, in Prague. So he's gonna have not one, not two, but 3 books, uh, one of them which is a double feature. So plenty of Knut to go around. And, uh, yeah, I'm happy that you wanna hang out with us.
Yeah. Even if you have, uh, any of those books already, get the, get the 3-pack, get them signed, and then you can give the non-signed copies away to your friends.
Yeah. And also get this beautiful pin.
Perfect. And I think there's some shirts coming as well, right?
Yeah. Hopefully if I can order them in time, I've postponed it for too long. But guys, I, I'm going to have to leave you soon because I'm picking up a bunch of pizzas over here for my family. So, um, take care and we'll see each other in Prague. Uh, nice to stop by like this. Just gonna have to Deliver pizzas first.
No, sounds good. Thanks.
Sounds good.
Bye. Good to see you.
Bye. Well, get out of here. Fuck off.
That's funny.
I might leave that in.
Yeah, you should. You should. That's excellent.
All right. So, um, yeah. Um, what else can we mention? So, uh, we're going to be there all 3 days, industry day, uh, the 2 main conference days, right? Um, anything, anything else?
I think since Knut mentioned Yoni and his book, which is Abundance Through Scarcity, I think it's worth the mention that we're going to launch that book at Prague. So it's going to be the big, big event that we're gonna have. So I, I've read through it already. We got, we got this tool here. I can tell you, you need it in your library. It's fantastic. And the, all of the designs in there, all the images are beautiful. They're really artworks. So come see us, look that, look, pick up the book, look at it. You'll understand what I mean, but that's going to be great to see. Like, we want to support Yoni and he's going to have a talk on stage too. And after that, come get your book signed. You won't regret it.
Yeah, I can vouch as well that he's been one of my favorite interviews on Freedom Footprint Show, especially in our early days. He was one of our first and Yeah, just a brilliant guy, super smart. And yeah, clearly a lot there. I haven't had a chance to read it even though I would also have access to the proof copy, I think. But yeah, looking forward to reading it. And we're going to have an AuthorCast episode featuring Joni coming out fairly soon here, and I'm sure he'll come back on Freedom Footprint Show to talk a little bit more about the book at some point. But first, Come meet him in Prague and get your copy and get it signed.
It's going to be a unique publication in our library, and I think it's also a unique book in the whole, you know, Bitcoin book library. It's kind of like a mix between so many different books. Like it's, it's a little bit of Bitcoin Standards, a little bit of Knut's Sovereign Digital Mathematics. Well, it's Abundance Through Scarcity, so there's that. There's a little bit of like Jeff Booth's Price of Tomorrow, you know, deflation is the key to abundance. So all those things put together in a very psychological, nerdy, techy way, but accessible. I don't think there's a book like this on the market. And yeah, I like it and you should definitely pick it up.
Yeah, I 100% agree with you. I think This book is going to be the gateway drug to a lot of different topics that are not just Bitcoin, but revolve around it. And it's going to send you down so many rabbit holes of things that you're going to have to read on and look up. So very fun.
It might even be the gateway drug to some drugs, as I understand it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's a lot of stuff about psychedelics and, you know, Bitcoin and Burning Man and, you know, how those work. And we're just talking about this with with Yoni in the author cast actually. So you should check out that when it's, when it's ready for release. I'm not going to spoil it, spoil it any more than that. But there is, Yoni makes it very apparent that there's a bridge between Bitcoin and psychedelics, so you should check it out.
Awesome. Anything else for us to cover? I think the, the other thing from my perspective is that I'll be around, Virginia will be around, we'll be Talking to people, taking some footage, because the hub is also going to be a little bit of a media thing. We're going to start to do a little bit more in the way of kind of coverage for the conference. So again, it's our first time, so we'll see how it goes, how it plays out. But I think that's the other thing we'll be doing. And yeah, I think we'll also be trying to do some live episodes of the Freedom Footprint Show, or rather what I mean is recording them. Live if we can get the space and people want to do them. So, yeah.
Yeah, we hope to see everybody, but we do understand that traveling is always a little complicated. So, if you can't make it and you can't be there in Prague, just subscribe to the channel or follow us on Twitter. We are going to be live tweeting from the conference. We're going to show you our favorite parts of the different keynotes, all of the talks that we're going to see. We're going to give you the 411 on everything that's happening and some behind the scenes, which considering we're going to drink some, I think are going to be pretty interesting.
Yeah, it's definitely going to be a fun time. We're, we're, we're here for business, but I think business is in the Bitcoin world is a lot of fun. It's, yeah, it's It's been great to be a part of this community. And I've got to say, just, I was actually thinking about this. It's actually less than a year since I got involved with ConsenSys and all this whole whirlwind actually started. And it's been crazy. And I love the Bitcoin community and just come see us. We're all great friends and enjoy talking to Bitcoiners and spreading the Bitcoin message. That's the entire point of ConsenSys and You'll get to meet some great authors and get some good books and get them signed, and it'll be a great time.
Yep. See you there. And you will notice we, we'll be wearing ConsenSys Network starfish shirts. So whenever you see the starfish, you can just tap, tap her in the back and come say hi.
Yeah, I'll have to change from my usual metal shirts to another black t-shirt.
Yes. At least they're black.
At least they're black. I refuse to wear any other color. Exactly. Okay. I think this is, this is it. So looking forward to seeing you in Prague or connecting with you on the Bitcoin interweb somehow. And yeah, thanks a lot. This has been a special episode of the Starfish Cast.
Oh, and if, if this is coming out before Prague, then you can probably still use our discount code, which is Consensus15, if you want to want that last-minute ticket, which you probably, in all honesty, should get. Like if, if there's one event you're gonna go, this is it. See you there.
This is the one. Definitely. Yep. Okay. Thanks again, Virginia, Niko. This has been great. And, uh, thanks again to Knut. Thanks, Adam. Yep. So see you there.
