Over the past weekend, a group of bitcoin enthusiast hosted the worlds first ever Bitcoin VR meetup. To commemorate this, we talked to one of the participants, Eric Wall Chief Investment Officer in the crypto hedgefund Arcane Assets, to learn more about this event.
How did this idea come about?
It’s been talked about on Crypto Twitter for a while that we should do this. After several years of expanding our social crypto circles beyond country borders and getting weary from all the conference traveling, we’ve been feeling like there must be something we can do with technology. The game environment (VRchat) is mature enough to actually meet in-game and more crypto nerds have VR gear now. The Oculus Quest is a key factor in this in my view, it is a standalone VR headset that’s pretty affordable. I think Udi Wertheimer was the one who decided a time and place to meet, he’s the one who invited me.
How many people attended?
We were about 15 people.
Could anyone join?
Yes.
What does this mean for the future of Bitcoin hangouts?
If you’ve never tried a proper VR headset you should definitely do it. For me, this was the first time meeting other people using it. The ‘immersiveness’ of the experience makes it an actual social experience. You may actually get a little bit nervous because it feels like you’re around other people. You even feel the discomfort of someone standing too close to you (hodlonaut can confirm this, he kept laughing because I was stroking his face when he was talking). Those kinds of details are also the things which made everyone say it felt like a real meetup.
During the meetup, we spontaneously formed a big circle and we had a plush kitten that was passed around between everyone giving them a chance to introduce themselves for the whole group. After that we formed smaller circles and discussed random bitcoin things. I met a guy in there who helped me review an article I had written about bitcoin privacy. We discussed the future of confidentiality for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. A few other people jumped into the conversation. It actually got kind of heated, my throat was sore after all the yelling.
When is the next one?
Join the Telegram chat to find out! It hasn’t been announced yet.
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Arcane Assets is a fully owned subsidiary of Arcane Crypto AS, who is also the parent company to Kryptografen.