The bitcoin conference schedule is heating up for 2014. First up is the warm climate of Miami Beach. The North American Bitcoin Conference is being held there over the weekend of 25th-26th January.
The conference will be at the Miami Beach Convention Center. A networking event is scheduled for the Friday night before (24th January) at the Clevelander Hotel. That will be followed by two full days of bitcoin-centric speakers, learning sessions and product demos.
Moe Levin, who was managing coordinator of the Bitcoin EU Convention in Amsterdam last September, is running the Miami conference. He is forecasting a big turnout based on ticket sales.
“We expect 500-700 people,” he told CoinDesk.
Levin says that there will be a number of attendees traveling from Latin America to Miami because of its geographic proximity: “The conference being in Miami, there will be a lot of people coming from Latin America.”
It’s expected that a number of participants from the finance world will be coming to Miami as well, Levin explained: “I’m seeing financial investors coming in totally unrelated to bitcoin that just want to learn about it.”
Bitcoin-related startups were a very popular topic at the Inside Bitcoins conference in Las Vegas last month. Levin says that will also be a component of the North American Bitcoin Conference, along with a number of finance-related topics as well: “We will have a lot of financial speakers and we’re having a venture capital panel. But it’s also startups and developers as well. We have a panel for startups.”
There will also be a workshop hosted by BitPay to educate merchants about accepting bitcoin as a form of payment.
“We have a full day workshop for merchants to come to. It’s free for all merchants, it’s mostly for brick and mortar stores.”
The conference also has a mobile app called BTC Miami for both the Apple and Android mobile platforms. Users who install it are able to view the conference schedule, check in to events and network with bitcoin enthusiasts while at the conference.
There will also be a large number of exhibitors at the show promoting bitcoin-related products and service. And there’s still space available, according to Levin: “So far, we have 20 exhibitors showing their stuff.”
Full-conference and single-day conference tickets are still available on the official website.
CoinDesk will be covering the event so stay tuned for more info about the North American Bitcoin Conference in the coming weeks!
Miami Beach image via Shutterstock