Conferences are held in order to increase awareness about an idea, educate people, and share ongoing research. The upcoming Bitcoin conference in Miami is going to take place on January 16th and is the 4th Bitcoin conference to take place in north america. The current price for a ticket is $150 and you can buy it from http://btcmiami.com/

Why you should not attend it

It has come to our attention that the CEO of Gaw Miners – a known scam Josh Garza, is going to be speaking at the conference. What is even more troubling is that PayBase – which is also owned by Josh is a premier sponsor for the conference.

There are two major problems with PayBase being a premiere sponsor. First, by displaying PayBase logos and ads throughout the bitcoin conference btcmiami is creating false reassurance that PayBase is a legitimate company which should be trusted. Secondly, it shows just how little morals exists in the bitcoin industry if the conference organizers would rather sell out and pocket more cash from these events instead of educating the community about the benefits and upcoming features of bitcoin.

Just look at the other premier sponsors of the event. Factom is a startup which solves a real problem in the bitcoin network – the large size of the blockchain (a few gigabytes).

Factom takes lots of hashes and turns them into a single periodic hash on the blockchain – this fixes the bloat problem.

PerkinsCoie is a law firm which represents companies and helps them with legal issues

Perkins Coie LLP represents great companies across a wide range of industries and stages of growth—from startups to FORTUNE 50 corporations.

Last but not least we all know bitpay – one of bitcoin’s top and most reputable startups which plays a major part in merchant adoption of bitcoin.

PayBase just does not belong. It does nothing to help the bitcoin currency or community, it has no new innovation and no new features.

The bitcoin community has clearly expressed their opposition to letting Josh Garza speak at the conference. Unfortunately, money is the name of the game and Moe Levin who is the organizer for the event refused to redact Josh from the list of speakers. Instead he added an extra 30 minutes for Q&A after Josh’s speech.

I have received many emails of concern about letting Josh Garza speak. I sympathize, and would like for him to address those concerns directly. So, I have decided to let him speak, but will add an extra 30 minute question and answer period afterwards, so the community has the chance to confront Josh and voice their concerns.

What’s even more astounding is the fact that Moe Levin decided to turn the situation around and try to profit from all the drama regarding PayBase and Josh Garza. His post on reddit suggests that those that have concerns regarding Josh should “make their voice heard”. Essentially by adding an extra 30 minutes of Q&A it creates an incentive to buy a ticket just so you can “make your voice heard” during the Q&A session.

Make your voice heard

The best way to “make your voice heard” is by not buying a ticket, not attending the conference and making the room look like the picutre above during Josh Garza’s speech. Do you think that adding 30 minutes for a Q&A is a fair compromise? Do you think PayBase should be removed from the sponsors list and the money that was given to the conference organizers returned back to PayBase? Comment below. If you liked this article follow us on twitter @btc_feed