Berlin: The Center For Decentralized Finance And Techno Music
Berlin performed very well in the areas of "Cryptocurrency Regulatory Framework" and "Cryptocurrency Adoption," which are the most likely category factors in CoinDesk's ranking model. Compared to this sample of 25 mostly high-performing and economically developed hubs, the German capital is firmly in the center of opportunity rankings, which measure crypto jobs, businesses and events per capita, as well as cryptocurrency scores. empowerment, including ease of doing business. and digital infrastructure.
To learn more about the criteria and how to measure them, see How We Rank Crypto Hubs for CoinDesk's Crypto Hubs 2023: Our Methodology.
Berlin's crypto scene may not be as well known as the city's techno music, nightlife, or architecture, but its quiet influence on decentralized finance (DeFi) is undeniable. Based on the city, many of its features date back to the birth of Ethereum, and Berlin even hosted the first Ethereum developer conference, DEVCON 0, in 2014, just months before the blockchain launched. Room 77 in the Kreuzberg district was the first pub in the world to accept Bitcoin (BTC) as a form of payment.
Since the early days of cryptocurrency, Germany's capital, already a tech hub in its own right, with Google and Facebook setting up offices in the city, has attracted Patrick Hansen, the EU's director of strategy and policy, obsessed with blockchain. Stable coin issuance department. he said.
Read Crypto Hub 2023 : Where you can live free and work smart
Hansen moved to Berlin in 2017 and has become an influential voice in blockchain policy in Europe, as Germany became one of the first countries in the world to take serious steps to regulate cryptocurrencies. He said the city's cryptocurrency scene is "decentralized," correctly reflecting the community that maintains the source code and underlying infrastructure on large centralized exchanges or custodians.
“Berlin hosts Blockchain Week, the biggest conference, but even that is very decentralized. It's not a big event, it's like hundreds of events happening in a week,” Hansen said. His Blockchain Week Berlin website is a decentralized initiative organized by local communities. There is no single owner. It is a neutral movement based on the premise that oneself -Regulation is the backbone of the ecosystem”.
In addition to the main event, Berlin has something for all blockchain enthusiasts (DeFi, CeFi, NFT, you name it!), with diversity and growth opportunities,” says Santiago Abraham, director of the BerChain Association, a non-member-run, for-profit organization. organization Support and promotion of the cryptocurrency community in Berlin.
“The community is really decentralized,” echoes Abraham Hansen, adding that every week there are countless meetups, events, and spaces dedicated to the blockchain, where you can work over a drink or socialize, called Stammtisch.
Don't forget the night life.
Julien Grego, a cryptocurrency veteran living in Berlin, said he decided to move to the city because it is "a lively and dynamic city, the most international, the most culturally interesting." For party and techno music, Grego says the best place to go is Berlin. "Berlin has a different flavor than many other European cities." Hansen added that the cost of living in Berlin remains affordable compared to other cities in the region, which suffer from high food and energy prices.
For Grigo, the Berlin crypto scene reflects the broader acceptance of the promises of financial security and independence of cryptocurrencies in Germany. Grego said the Stasi secret police's surveillance of East Germany during the Cold War is still etched in the nation's collective memory. This, along with a widespread fear of hyperinflation, has made the country's population somewhat vulnerable to cryptocurrencies.
These nationalist sentiments may be another factor allowing projects that call Berlin home to thrive, from regulated DeFi platforms like Swarm to privacy-preserving wallet tracking app Rotki, helping to attract talented developers from around the world. to his native Berlin. . Conferences like ETHBerlin and Dappcon are organized by GnosisDAO, which is building a decentralized infrastructure for Ethereum.
“Why not Berlin, but Munich or Frankfurt? After all those German financial centers, right? To be honest... I don't think something like that could happen there," said Lefteris Karapetsas, founder of Rotke. Karapetsas, who said he was in the Ethereum office on Waldermarstraße when the network launched in 2015, added: "Berlin has a unique combination of talent, madness, passion, evil and even bad things that together make it the cryptocurrency capital of Europe."
Griego also pointed out that despite having a quarter of the population, Germany lags behind the United States globally in terms of the number of Bitcoin nodes and Ethereum validators.
“I think this is a strong indication that cryptocurrencies are taking root in Germany,” said Grego. "Berlin is the heart of the German tech scene, as well as the cryptocurrency scene."
This story originally appeared on Coindesk
