The summit venue, Haikko Manor house as seen from the south, the direction of the sea, in June.
I Bitcoin Supernode Summit Finland 9.-12. May 2013
Bitcoin meetup for the ones most deeply interested in it.
The Bitcoin Supernode Summit will be organized first time in May, 2013. It is based on the understanding that Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology as pervasive as the Internet. What tells them apart, is the fact that adopting Bitcoin among the first 100 million people in the world, not only gives you the edge when doing anything related to economy in the future, but also increases the value of your share of the monetary stock (bitcoins) in existence, by 1-6 orders of magnitude, depending how early you got in. The ones holding the largest stashes of bitcoins - and the means to use them for the public benefit - now, are quickly emerging as new socioeconomic power centers, Bitcoin Supernodes. The Summit develops these concepts in an atmosphere of pristine natural beauty combined with impeccable luxury.
Venue
Haikko Manor, near Porvoo, Finland. Porvoo is about 30 minutes from Helsinki and the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Haikko Manor is established 1362. The current Manor House, was designed in 1911 to be able to accommodate the most prestigious occasion that was imaginable that time - King of England visiting by sea. The Manor House was such a large project that it was only finished and inaugurated in the 1960s. Since that time, there has been no King in England. The pretender of Russia has visited it though. Haikko boasts of a 35 acre park and shoreline to the Gulf of Finland.
Hosts
The Summit is organized by rpietila, who currently runs an approximately 1.5 class Bitcoin Supernode based in Helsinki, Finland. Members from his organization will act as hosts. Currently the named hosts are Risto Pietilä (rpietila) and Roni Blomberg (rontus).
Staff
There will be enough staff available for the typical needs of the delegates, and the number of staff assigned to serve you, increases exponentially with your ticket class. If you want to bring your own staff, family members, or the like, do organize their stay yourself. Non-participating spouses of Senior Delegates or higher, can stay in the same room at no extra cost. Currently there are available rooms in the hotel compound, also the hotels in Helsinki are only 30 minutes away.
Speakers
There will be no paid speakers. Whole group sessions will be avoided. The workgroups will be based on considerations of the previous work of the delegates, and the interests they currently have. We are likely already aware of your contributions to the Bitcoin economy; if your knowledge is world class, you will be appointed as a workgroup facilitator upon your request. Most of the time during the summit is intentionally left available for self-organized work. Details will be based upon the wishes of the delegates, and updated below.
Schedule
Wednesday, May 8th
19:00 CXV (115th) Club Evening in Silverclub, Helsinki (upon separate invitation only)
Thursday, May 9th
10:00 Conference backend operational. Shuttle service between the Airport, Helsinki, Haikko and Porvoo starts. If you arrive earlier, please reserve for yourself a room in airport hotel and have a good sleep and breakfast; we will pick the early birds up at 10, and transfer to Haikko.
Friday, May 10th
18:00 Opening Gala in Haikko
Saturday, May 11th
Sunday, May 12th
16:00 Conference backend closes operations. Shuttle service between the Airport, Helsinki, Haikko and Porvoo ends. If your flight is later, we will be able to book your airport transfer.
Workshops
DEALER NETWORK
BITCOIN SUPERNODE
REAL BILLS AND CLEARINGHOUSE
(will be expanded soon, also the 7 non-rpietila delegates can start posting their ideas to the thread, no need to ask my permission, you can be sure we do exactly what we want in the summit, so if your idea is good, we will develop it and the converse).
NEW: Please somebody set up a private forum for just the participants, unless this forum grants us a private section before 1st May noon UTC.
Admissions & Fees
Maximum 50 admissions available worldwide, of which currently 7 are taken.
Admission Fee is 50,000mBTC, payable to 15X968JjsbT9LBKK9kFsAeAnKwi5G6LoUp.
All (delegate&up) admission fees will be sent to this address, regardless of the method that was used in purchasing the ticket (the tickets are for sale outside of bitcointalk also). This is to preserve the order of registrations for the 98%...2% early adopter discount. This means that the admission fee for the first entrant is 1,000mBTC, for the second 2,000mBTC, and so on, until the registration window ends on Sunday, May 5th, 23:59 UTC, or the maximum limit of 50 participants is reached. You may reserve a ticket only by prepayment, and the order of payments after 20 confirmations is the final arbiter of the discount. In cases where two legitimate payments of equal amount are included in the same block, both will get discounted the same amount, resulting in a 500mBTC additional payment due from both. Send PM with your details after sending your admission fee.
You may transfer your title to an admission to another. Send PM indicating the details, and pay 500mBTC transfer fee to 18BGLrjetpWjmP4PjQfTpeLXn1gSQx2Erv.
NEW: In case of no show, we will not be able to refund your ticket, unless you convert it to "virtual delegate" latest Sunday 5th. If you do this, we will be able to refund you 5,000mBTC (regardless of how much you paid for it).
Ticket Classes
2.5th class ticket = Delegate
(no additional cost)
- 2pax room, full board, and shuttle rides from and to the airport or city centre
2.0nd class ticket = Senior Delegate
(an additional 3,000mBTC)
- Single Room
1.5th class ticket = Donator
(an additional 10,000mBTC)
- Butler service
1.0st class ticket = VIP
(an additional 50,000mBTC)
- You may post a reasonable wishlist of maximum 3 sheets, and it will be granted upon availability
Details of what the higher classes get, will be added later.
A higher class gets first choice of suites, transportation, workgroups, etc. limited resources.
A higher class accumulates all benefits of the lower classes. (The costs are not accumulated though.)
Do not pay these to the Admission Fee address. We will charge them separately.
NEW_APR_29: All technical means will be available to attend to the summit virtually. If a delegate plans to do this, (s)he is expected to contact me, and start preparations from his/her part. This will entitle to a 5,000mBTC refund.
In addition there will be:
Hosts (participating staff of the rpietila supernode)
Staff (non-participating from rpietila and hotel)
Guests (paid speakers who are not bitcoiners yet)
Visitors (short term tickets issued to mainly local non-bitcoiners for specific events during the summit)
Pledges
If certain threshold numbers of admissions are reached, there will be some improvements in our living conditions, plus the overall feel of the summit:
- At least 10 admissions
Airport/city transfer upgraded to black German cars (E/5/6 class or larger).
- At least 20 admissions
Everything inside the compound will be free of charge, including spa treatments.
- At least 30 admissions
A Summit Secretariat will be organized, who will provide 24h backend services for the delegates, including snacks and drinks, taxis/limo, excursions to sights and clubs etc., completely according to your request, completely for free, for the duration of the summit. This will operate from two permanent bases, both in Haikko Manor and Hotel Kämp, Helsinki.
- At least 40 admissions
An opening gala dinner in the Romanov suite of the Manor House, with real silver tableware, engraved with the name of the delegate and the occasion, and gifted to the delegate. Afterparty in Helsinki, transfer in white limos (subject to availability).
- Sold out! (50 admissions)
We will employ the total of 30 girls to dole out free bitcoins to bystanders in 10 selected European cities for the duration of the summit. I will pledge 500,000mB of my private funds towards this free distribution.
Welcome to I Bitcoin Supernode Summit 2013!
[All info is subject to be updated.]
There are now 6 paid admissions to the summit, and all of them are for a physical stay. I am sorry to not have got back to you, I would be delighted if most of you would post something here, and would ask the general questions in public, so that me or a member of our staff can answer. I have been busy with a certain unforeseen deal today, but intend to not work at all during the rest of the week, except for this, which will receive my undivided attention.
The next ticket will go for 7,000mBTC. There is a new opportunity of a virtual admission, which entitles to everything except the actual coming to the summit, for a discount of 5,000mBTC. This means that you will still have to pay the 7,000 (or more) to the address, but will get 5,000 back at the instant that I am available to send it.
If you require practical assistance with getting a visa or anything, I want to help you by PM.
I encourage both the big potatoes and the disciples to sign up. The current balance is a bit of both, and we can easily accommodate more of either. I am sorry that I do not currently have the permission to disclose the identities, I hope I will do it for most of the delegates soon, or you can speak up for yourselves!
If you want to register, please read and understand the invitation.
The next ticket will go for 7,000mBTC. There is a new opportunity of a virtual admission, which entitles to everything except the actual coming to the summit, for a discount of 5,000mBTC. This means that you will still have to pay the 7,000 (or more) to the address, but will get 5,000 back at the instant that I am available to send it.
If you require practical assistance with getting a visa or anything, I want to help you by PM.
I encourage both the big potatoes and the disciples to sign up. The current balance is a bit of both, and we can easily accommodate more of either. I am sorry that I do not currently have the permission to disclose the identities, I hope I will do it for most of the delegates soon, or you can speak up for yourselves!
If you want to register, please read and understand the invitation.
I appreciate the invitation. I'd love to go to Finland. One day I will make it. I can't make it on such short notice.
The immodest emphasis on conspicuous luxury is something I find alienating and leads me to question the premise of the gathering. If I'm going to be invited to spend a $7,000 fee to attend a meeting, I'm accustomed to high-quality well-thought-out appeals for me to attend, which concentrate on the business development case for attendance more so than the exclusivity of the gathering and the luxurious luxuries that will be enjoyed there, the blackness of the German car I'll be picked up in, and the hotness of the 30 girls that will be passing out bitcoins. The way that this is presented, I feel like by going I'd be starring in a Bitcoin version of "Oppan Gang-nam Style" and that has a negative appeal to me. THis is not why I am involved in Bitcoin. This sort of meeting Should Not Take Place at a venue that requires an outlay like that per participant, with one exception: if the money were going to fund some well-defined and well-planned project to fund the common good.
The immodest emphasis on conspicuous luxury is something I find alienating and leads me to question the premise of the gathering. If I'm going to be invited to spend a $7,000 fee to attend a meeting, I'm accustomed to high-quality well-thought-out appeals for me to attend, which concentrate on the business development case for attendance more so than the exclusivity of the gathering and the luxurious luxuries that will be enjoyed there, the blackness of the German car I'll be picked up in, and the hotness of the 30 girls that will be passing out bitcoins. The way that this is presented, I feel like by going I'd be starring in a Bitcoin version of "Oppan Gang-nam Style" and that has a negative appeal to me. THis is not why I am involved in Bitcoin. This sort of meeting Should Not Take Place at a venue that requires an outlay like that per participant, with one exception: if the money were going to fund some well-defined and well-planned project to fund the common good.
Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.
I realize that astute bitcoin people are very busy, and therefore cannot easily read the fine print, which in this case says that the tickets will be sold at progressively higher prices. The first one was BTC1, and currently you would be able to reserve yours at BTC8, which, despite the fact that it is $1000+, will still net me a loss and cannot be considered excessive.
The level of people, targeted with this summit, is so high, that their opportunity cost of time easily runs in $thousands per day, so this is why I care about their physical well-being (and not so much care how much it will cost to me or them). It is realistically a $5-$10k investment for you or anyone from the U.S. to attend this (ticket+flight+time), so you don't want to have substandard living conditions. There is already another conference targeting a wider audience, and there is no point for me to reinvent the wheel.
As for the workshops, I have currently outlined three most critical developments in the bitcoinworld, which do need to be accomplished with the utmost speed and determination, namely:
- The Dealer Network, to stabilize the price during its appreciation phase and remove the single point of failure (Mt.Gox)
- The Supernode, to strengthen the socio-economic network, develop local power centers, and tie Bitcoin to the real world existing networks
- The Real Bill, to enable such a stable price in the long run that bitcoin can be used as a unit of account in production of goods and services
If you think there is anything more urgent and important to be done in this world than these, please post it here. Since I am pretty serious with this conference and consider it the culmination of my short career in bitcoin.
If you just see the blackness of the cars and hotness of the girls, you are myopic. This all needs to be there but the real content is in the workshops.
Thank you for the Casascius coins, they are beautiful, and a lasting testimony to your foresight.
Today I did the following:
- Some summit members have taken on tasks to practically organize matters. Expect zeroday to start a new thread and keep it in even better order than this one is. We will also have a private forum in 48 hours max, for the delegates and people in the process.
- I scoured the city for new and ritzier offices for my supernode. So far did not find anything of interest. My problem is that I want quite large (200+ sqm), best location (only a few blocks are good enough for me), good condition (4 meter ceiling is the target, <3 disqualified), and available (so that we can move in now and not in 2 months)
- We will go to Haikko on Thursday with a 4-ppl delegation, to discuss the practicalities of the Summit with the staff of the Manor House
- Chatted over skype with a Greek delegate
- Some people want to order Casascius coins from me, I have quoted 1,800mBTC / 2,200mBTC / 5,500mBTC for 2013/2012/2011 BTC1 coins incl dlwy.
- Goat sold me 700,000mBTC for 2.65M THB yesterday. I have now spent about 4 hours with the bank, and currently they have promised to send the money to him on Thursday. I need to pay anything between $1k-$3k in different fees to the bank (closer to $1k now since I phoned directly to the currency broker desk to exchange EUR->THB; but I have happily paid 1.55% fees on USD->EUR automatic conversion just because I did not specify the sender to use my USD account). LOL when Goat sees the money clear, his part is done in 15 seconds. [Do you realistically think that BTC will not go to $300/mBTC, just because of the fact that using banks for anything is such a pain?]
- We are celebrating the 3rd most important annual festival in Finland, only Midsummer and Christmas (in this order) are more important
- I have almost contracted a team of 3 bright and beautiful young women to help with the organising of the summit (+ being The Summit Secretariat during the event, if ever we reach 30 participants - which I doubt but will employ them anyway)
All delegates - If you need something very important before Thursday May 2nd, 16:00 UTC, PM me. Otherwise I will have the staff and the rooms etc. ready by then and will contact everyone personally.
Since the best rooms are in short supply, please decide for yourself now, if you would like to have:
A) a suite (Manor House 2nd and highest floor apartment with bedroom, living area, bath, and large balcony facing the sea - visible in the photo in the summit invitation) with butler service for 10,000mBTC; OR
B) a single room in Manor House 1st floor with bath / single room in the conference wing (same price) for 3,000mBTC; OR
C) shared room with another delegate with bath (included).
- Some summit members have taken on tasks to practically organize matters. Expect zeroday to start a new thread and keep it in even better order than this one is. We will also have a private forum in 48 hours max, for the delegates and people in the process.
- I scoured the city for new and ritzier offices for my supernode. So far did not find anything of interest. My problem is that I want quite large (200+ sqm), best location (only a few blocks are good enough for me), good condition (4 meter ceiling is the target, <3 disqualified), and available (so that we can move in now and not in 2 months)
- We will go to Haikko on Thursday with a 4-ppl delegation, to discuss the practicalities of the Summit with the staff of the Manor House
- Chatted over skype with a Greek delegate
- Some people want to order Casascius coins from me, I have quoted 1,800mBTC / 2,200mBTC / 5,500mBTC for 2013/2012/2011 BTC1 coins incl dlwy.
- Goat sold me 700,000mBTC for 2.65M THB yesterday. I have now spent about 4 hours with the bank, and currently they have promised to send the money to him on Thursday. I need to pay anything between $1k-$3k in different fees to the bank (closer to $1k now since I phoned directly to the currency broker desk to exchange EUR->THB; but I have happily paid 1.55% fees on USD->EUR automatic conversion just because I did not specify the sender to use my USD account). LOL when Goat sees the money clear, his part is done in 15 seconds. [Do you realistically think that BTC will not go to $300/mBTC, just because of the fact that using banks for anything is such a pain?]
- We are celebrating the 3rd most important annual festival in Finland, only Midsummer and Christmas (in this order) are more important
- I have almost contracted a team of 3 bright and beautiful young women to help with the organising of the summit (+ being The Summit Secretariat during the event, if ever we reach 30 participants - which I doubt but will employ them anyway)
All delegates - If you need something very important before Thursday May 2nd, 16:00 UTC, PM me. Otherwise I will have the staff and the rooms etc. ready by then and will contact everyone personally.
Since the best rooms are in short supply, please decide for yourself now, if you would like to have:
A) a suite (Manor House 2nd and highest floor apartment with bedroom, living area, bath, and large balcony facing the sea - visible in the photo in the summit invitation) with butler service for 10,000mBTC; OR
B) a single room in Manor House 1st floor with bath / single room in the conference wing (same price) for 3,000mBTC; OR
C) shared room with another delegate with bath (included).