My experience there always humbles me, in a literal sense. People come up and say how much my content matters.
Rather than take this as an ego boost, it reminds me I have responsibility. It reminds me never to say things online I wouldn’t say in person. It reminds me of the importance of consistency.
I can’t imagine being in a position where I wouldn’t just walk around freely. I practice opsec, so I minimize easily-planned prior threats, but apart from those I think no matter how big your audience is, walking around a bitcoin conference freely seems the right thing to do.
People run into me in elevators, conference walkways, etc. I do minimize my conference appearance and am cautious of my opsec, but once I am out I’ll sign things or take pics with folks who see me and say hi.
quotingIn five years of going to bitcoin conferences, I’ve literally never had a truly bad experience with someone. People who fly out to be at places are almost always reasonable.
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To put this in context, I’ve had thousands of brief meetups over the years and nothing truly bad happened even once. The worst outcome was I had someone be slightly awkwardly clingy a few times, but nothing worse. So this is a 99.9% social uptime situation, and even the 0.1% is still okay.
I am kind of at the top end of the gray zone of security. Super-celebs have security teams and don’t walk around on the conference floor. I do personally walk around the place by myself (which yes is a friction as I get dozens of interactions and photo requests and such), and when offered security by the conference to get out, I turn it down since I find it very hectic but manageable and worth it.
People who are negative (and usually anon) online tend to either not go to these events or don’t show their face if they are there. That seems on brand. No skin in the game.
This is a positive space, and I think we’re going to win.