Bitcoin and the Decentralized Revolution
As Bitcoin moves into the mainstream, adjacent projects are also gaining momentum. Bitfest, a new UK Bitcoin conference, showcased the latest developments
By Bitcoms for Bitcoin Policy UK
“[Bitcoin is] no different than what gold represented over thousands of years. It is an asset class that protects you.”
- Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock (the world’s largest asset manager), 2024
“17 years after the white paper, the Bitcoin network is still operational and more resilient than ever. Bitcoin never shuts down.”
- Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (the world’s largest economy), 2025
From its obscure origins in a niche corner of the internet less than two decades ago, Bitcoin has already hit the mainstream. Along that journey, people’s ideas of what Bitcoin is and what it represents have broadened. For Wall Street and the City, it’s a new neutral asset class, ripe for intermediation and financialisation. For some politicians and governments, it is the network par excellence, and an asset worth holding at nation-state level. Even the crypto-laggard UK authorities now recognize its importance, recently creating a new legal category of property for Bitcoin and other so-called digital assets.
But despite large centralized entities worldwide adopting and attempting to redefine it, Bitcoin is still very much what it originally set out to be: truly decentralized electronic cash, transactable directly with no middleman.
“What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.” Satoshi Nakamoto in the pre-implementation white paper ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’, 2008
Bitcoin as this ‘freedom money’ has faded in the public imagination in recent years as the likes of Washington and Wall Street, amplified by the media, have weighed in with their own agendas. But away from the headlines, Bitcoin’s use as decentralized peer-to-peer cash is accelerating, with the global number of merchants who accept it climbing by two thirds in 2025.
This decentralized revolution hasn’t just quietly gained momentum - it has expanded. New protocols have been built and implemented, not only directly onto Bitcoin (the best known being the Lightning network, which facilitates instant Bitcoin payments), but also around Bitcoin (such as Nostr, an “apolitical communications commons” which uses Bitcoin-like cryptography). Such Bitcoin-adjacent initiatives typically share a common cypherpunk spirit.
These projects and the principles behind them were placed front and centre in late 2025 by a new Bitcoin conference in Manchester. “I was disappointed that there was no UK cypherpunk-inspired conference, so we decided to start Bitfest,” said Nind, one of the organizers. Consistent with these aspirations, the event had no sponsors, forgoing corporate funding for programming freedom (contrast this with the recent Bitcoin MENA conference, which had almost 70 sponsors).
“We wanted to focus on the important things like adoption, communities and sovereignty - not just in Bitcoin, but in adjacent areas like education and health,” said BTC Map’s Nathan Day, who after meeting Nind only last summer and “ranting about Nostr” was quickly co-opted onto the organizing team. He presided over the first day of the conference which was devoted to Nostr. “I think the ‘Nostrshire’ day pulled in Bitcoiners that perhaps wouldn’t have come if it was just a Bitcoin conference,” he said.
Nostr (‘Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays’) is a communications protocol which, like Bitcoin, has no central authority, and is more credibly decentralized than apps such as Bluesky and Mastodon. “Nostr gives us true freedom to communicate, just like Bitcoin gives us true freedom money and freedom to transact. We need both in a world that is sliding into totalitarianism,” said AJ of Nostrdev, who spoke at the conference.
Nostr is gaining traction as a decentralized social network - think Twitter/X with no corporation, no algorithm and no moderators. But it is also the foundation for an expanding range of other applications, from podcasting to crowdfunding to livestreaming to AI, and several of these projects were presented in Manchester. “Nostr’s superpower is empowering anyone to build and contribute,” said Bitfest speaker Derek Ross, a prolific developer and champion of the protocol. “Nostr wins with the irrelevance of closed platforms altogether, replaced by open protocols where people build and connect freely.”
Whatever the application built onto Nostr, Bitcoin tends to be integrated as the native payments mechanism. “It was great to find out more about some of the use cases of Nostr plus Bitcoin, for instance the UK-built taxi hailing protocol Donkey Rides,” said Bitfest attendee Bitcoin Bach, who was particularly drawn to the conference by the Nostr day.
As means of disintermediating music industry middlemen and connecting fans directly with artists, Lightning and Nostr also featured in the livestream of Bitfest’s ‘New Music Economy’ party, where live acts entertained a crowd including conference attendees. “My main ambition really is to shake up the entire music industry and have creators working on - and knowledgeable of - the Bitcoin standard,” says Nat ‘Atlas’ Cole, one of the Bitfest organizers and also a musician who performed at the show. “Music itself is a powerful medium of expression, and rebel music has always been about revolutionary ideas, movements and messages. With music I think that we can ‘orange pill’ the world.”
As with music, there is also a burgeoning Bitcoin-adjacent visual art scene, and Bitfest had an extensive art gallery. Rebel Money (whose presentation on the history of Bitcoin art was one of the weekend’s highlights) was among the many artists showing work. “Bitcoin art preserves and communicates the values at the heart of Bitcoin: proof of work, decentralization, and privacy,” he said. “These peaceful principles are not just technical ideals. They are cultural foundations essential to a prosperous and free future for communities around the world.”
In the 20th century, similar principles underpinned idealistic early visions of the internet as a way for people to interact directly with each other. But these dreams died as online life was gradually taken over by centralized entities. Corporations, banks and governments today use closed systems to mediate and control, boost and shadowban, and ultimately allow or censor communications and transactions. In the UK, the Online Safety Act and a planned mandatory digital ID look set to intensify intermediation, and similarly oppressive measures are being taken in other countries. All over the world, further restrictions over financial interaction also look imminent with the introduction and promotion of permissioned cryptocurrencies such as central bank digital currencies and stablecoins.
But while the internet revolution failed to realise those early dreams of direct interconnection, the decentralized revolution - with its open protocols such as Bitcoin and Nostr - has resurrected them. It is being driven by like-minded individuals simply working together, and a grass-roots community feel permeated the Manchester conference. “Bitfest was an incredible event.” said attendee LiverpoolHODL. “It’s always great to be reminded that bottom-up movements are built entirely by people just doing things.”
This is the essence of successful decentralized systems. Take Bitcoin itself: beyond the blockchain, it’s really about the people who develop, run and participate in the network. That’s what my photographs in The Clockchain aim to highlight. And the same is true with many Bitcoin-adjacent initiatives, where each individual actor is contributing to a kaleidoscopic common mission: to build a better, freer world. In-person events such as Bitfest both celebrate and - perhaps more importantly - facilitate this mission.
The Bitcoin network is still very much decentralized, and the explosion of centralized entities getting involved with it (such as financial institutions, exchanges, treasury companies and governments) doesn’t change that. By eschewing the corporate executives and politicians who often dominate Bitcoin conferences, Bitfest shifted the spotlight onto people just doing things - not for profit or power, but for the sake of peaceful principles. And it’s thanks to those people that the decentralized revolution is in full swing.